Priorities
If we want to render a cultural critique, it is the relationship of the Christ of the gospel to the cultures that pattern our social constructions that needs to be addressed. Skirting the narrative gospels to get “back” to the historical Jesus will not work. No reconstruction of the historical Jesus can account for the narrative gospel in the first place, or challenge the narrative gospels and the portrayal of Jesus they present in the popular imagination. The current quest for the historical Jesus does not raise questions about the supposed reasons for the importance of the historical Jesus. It does not raise questions about the effective difference Christianity makes as a social presence and cultural influence in our world. It has not asked what it is about the Christian gospel and religion that is inappropriate, inadequate, troubling, or even dangerous as we face the social and cultural issues of our time. New Testament scholars have not found a way to broach, much less discuss questions such as these in the public forum. The quest for the historical Jesus actually avoids these questions. It seeks, on the model of the Protestant reformation, to leap-frog over the “wrongheaded” myths and rituals of the Christian churches to land at the beginning where the pure, clean impulse of an uncontaminated Jesus can rectify and rejuvenate Christian faith. That is mythic thinking with an apron-string attachment to Christian mentality. It will not produce a scholarly account of Christian origins. And it will not produce a rejuvenated (Christian) spirituality unbeholden to the gospel accounts.”
– Burton Mack in Christian Myth: Origins, Logic, and Legacy, pp. 39-40
Amen. The existence or non-existence of a historical Jesus does not address the shortcomings of the vast majority of people of Christian faith in falling short of the ideals of their leader, and neither does it speak to the acts of goodwill and generosity and sacrifice that have been made on his behalf. It most certainly does not speak to the relevance and holy insight of the red words in the New Testament; in fact, it utterly distracts from and profanes them. We’re all just human beings, and some do a better job than others.