
Perhaps pastors are too smart for their own good. Maybe they know too much about the gospel to take Jesus seriously on issues of social ethics. But that's the problem and that's what I suggest is at the heart of the matter...
Wherever pastors are getting their theological education, however they're training themselves to think about the gospel of Jesus, they've managed to relegate Jesus to the "spiritual dimension." Jesus came, they seem to think, so that people can go to heaven when they die. Sure, it'd be nice if they could learn to behave themselves in the meantime - Jesus wants us to be moral and all - but those teachings are more like suggestions when it comes down to the wire. The gospel doesn't determine our social ethics - necessity does, but Jesus' teachings might be helpful here and there. We've lost the concrete theological connection between what we're doing and why we're doing it - between the social ethics of Jesus and the Kingdom message he came to embody and proclaim. Loving your enemies has taken a backseat to "believing" and "professing" when, in reality according to the resurrection, loving your enemies is actually the foundation for belief and profession. There's not just a connection between Jesus social ethics and his saving work - as if they're just helpful to one another - one actually feeds into the other in such a way that you can't have one without the other.
Jesus was known for his frustratingly uncompromising commitment to love. Perhaps we pastors should take our cues from Jesus, the way so many have throughout history.
"The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obligated to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget anything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world? Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church's prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you? Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the Living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament." _Soren Kierkegaard
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