Fortress Press

"Carter Heyward gathers the elements of her transformative reflection and action under the wings of this compassionate, courageous christology. Distinguishing 'being right' from 'right relation,' she brings to this new reformation a teachable, preachable Jesus, far-flung and intimate, one as much needed as awaited. What a great gift to progressive Christianity, for which she has long been such an influential force."
— Catherine E. Keller, School of Theology, Drew University

"Instead of entering into debate with the so-called 'Right' on the basis of their interpretations of Jesus, Carter Heyward calls forth rich and deeply compelling images of Jesus, of the Sacred Power, and of diverse ways of experiencing mutuality. By showing us the power of life as being-in-communion with all of creation, her book calls us away from comforting religiosity and challenges us to live boldly and passionately, as did Jesus. This passionate living will lead us to be totally present in our world, as we struggle for justice and equality for all."
— Elias Farajajé-Jones, Starr King School for the Ministry

Chapter 1 Summary

In this introductory chapter, I begin to explore the origins of this christological adventure. "JESUS" -- what does this name mean to me? What am I inviting you, the reader, to assume with me? I suggest that, consciously or not, we begin in God and in prayer. In this study, I am especially attentive to the theological claims of "those who are right" and to presenting an alternative way of thinking about what it means to be Christian.

"Those who are right" refers not only to the Religious Right in the United States and elsewhere today, but moreover -- and more importantly, probably -- to all of us whenever we assume that we know it all or that our way is the only way to think or act. Those who are right tend to be impatient, I suggest, with God, themselves, and others. They do not accept the imperfection, or incompleteness, of God's creation. Their response to the soul's yearning is to block it with easy answers rather than to more graciously hold the unfinishedness and mysteries of God and God's creation.

Trying to be clear and firm, Christians who are right often imagine that JESUS is an authoritarian Lord, a righteous moralist, an embattled adversary, and an obedient Son to a righteous Father. In this book, I offer alternative images to the authoritarian, moralistic, adversarial, and obedient JESUS of the right. I suggest that mutuality, passion (or real presence), and forgiveness are more genuinely moral relational possibilities for our life together.

As the chapter ends, I cite origins of this book in my own life-journey.

Chapter 2 Summary

Why do I speak here mainly of JESUS, less often of CHRIST or JESUS CHRIST? And who am I to speak at all, and who are you to speak of these matters? In this chapter, I explore what would be called, in more traditional theology or philosophy, the "epistemological" basis of this book. "Epistemology" refers to how we know what we know. Here I examine the existential, political, and mystical ways I have come to make the spiritual, intellectual, and political claims I make in this book. With sister theologians Kwok Pui-lan and Dorothee Soelle, I also lift up the role of theological imagination as a primary resource for knowing what we know about JESUS, about ourselves, about God and the world.

Finally, I look at the "postmodern" underpinnings of much theological work being done today, and I cite ways in which this study is, and is not, in my judgment, an addition to postmodern discourse.

Chapter 3 Summary

Who or what is this "God" whom JESUS loved? What is this Spirit that infused the life of the brother from Nazareth and also fills and spills over in the lives of all creatures great and small, if only we will cooperate? I suggest here that God is our Sacred Power in the struggle to generate more fully mutual relation, in which all of us, not just a few, are empowered to live more fully just and compassionate lives. Injustice, or oppression, is both source and consequence of evil -- non-mutual power relations of domination and control. We are urged in and by God to struggle for justice, peace, compassion, and liberation.

And it is not simply we humans who are involved in this Trinitarian (radically relational) "godding" -- all creatures are part of the ongoing processes of life and liberation in the world. We humans seldom see this or let ourselves realize it. Our romanticizing of "nature" is one of the ways we avoid taking other creatures seriously as members of our Body.

God's Power and Spirit are ours, as they were JESUS of Nazareth's, insofar as we are making justice-love in the world, in smaller and larger realms of our life together. There is no arena too small, and none too large, for God's power to be shared and celebrated.

Chapter 4 Summary

Those who are right usually suggest that the solution to the problem of evil is for good people to "obey" those who know what's right. This self-absorbed reasoning serves primarily to hold the power in the hands of authoritarian leaders -- especially secular and religious "fathers" and parental figures. This is the basis of patriarchy. I suggest here that evil is rooted in non-mutual, authoritarian relational dynamics that, in the real world, are usually patriarchal.

Drawing on biblical texts, I explore several roots of evil in our life together: fear of our power in relation (which is, in fact, our fear of God); intolerance of ambiguity; denial (refusing to see what is actually happening); and lack of compassion, hence a willingness to do violence to one another, ourselves, and the Spirit of God.

Chapter 5 Summary

In these pages, I am interested in helping us move beyond the moralistic self-righteousness that pretends to know what's right for all persons and creatures in all times and places regardless of how it actually affects real human and creature life. The problem with "moralism" is that it is an abstraction, an idea, usually an absolute, that gets "applied" to actual life irrespective of the consequences.

As a more liberating and compassionate response to the serious, complex moral quandaries and questions of our life together, I interpret the Passion of JESUS as the basis of how he lived in the context of similar quandaries and questions. He lived passionately. By that, I mean that he lived a fully human life -- really present, deeply rooted in God, able to be there with and for others, friend and stranger alike. He was able to be in the questions, share the quandaries, not put himself outside or above others. There was nothing pretentious about JESUS, and certainly nothing moralistic. He was simply himself, an embodied bearer of hope and faith to sisters and brothers for whom life itself often must have seemed like a quandary of suffering and confusion.

In the midst of it all, JESUS was someone whose Passion for God was his Real Presence in life as teacher, brother, friend, and advocate. His Passion was fueled by his faith in the Spirit that, he realized, was at work in and through him -- and through others.

How might we describe his Passion, which is also ours? There are many ways. In these pages, I explore three, all of them "embodied." Each involves our Real Presence as bodies with communities and histories, needs and feelings, hopes and dreams. We are bodies living among other bodies and involved together, collectively and individually, in life, love, work, and struggle. In our embodied life together, our Passion involves our "coming out" for justice-love; our solidarity with the poor, outcast, and marginalized; and often our breaking of those boundaries that hinder the meeting of human, divine, and creaturely need.

I suggest that, like JESUS and in his Spirit, if we are living passionately, we are participating simultaneously in what Christian theologians have named the "incarnation" (God's embodied place among us) and the "atonement" (God's redemptive action among us). God is with us and God saves us precisely by being Really Present with us, among us, ever a sister or brother in the struggle for more mutually empowering relation.

Chapter 6 Summary

In this final chapter, I examine some of the problems with the dominant Christian atonement tradition, which, with other feminist theologians, I also reject as being cemented in the patriarchal logic of blood sacrifice. Unlike most feminist Christians, however, I reject not only such violence at the hands of God, but moreover the patriarchal logic that has produced a deity -- Father or even perhaps a Mother -- who reigns above us and seeks our "submission" or "obedience" as children to a parent. Against an understanding of a Lord or Father who asks us to obey, much less forces us to submit to His will or destroys us (or an "innocent" in our place), the Sacred Power presented in this book is One whose very essence is to forgive us, to yearn for our repentance, and to wait patiently -- generation upon generation, through evils of many kinds -- for us to turn in sorrow and repentance for our failures to love one another.

Aware that forgiveness often is misused and trivialized among Christians as a way of baiting victims to "forgive" those who have wounded them, I suggest that we cannot comprehend the Sacred Power of forgiveness unless we realize that it is, above all, a moral foundation of our life together in community. Forgiveness, to be granted and received in sustainable ways, requires not only that individuals repent and make amends, but moreover that our communities support these processes of healing and reconciliation and that all of us seek to build new ways of living together.

This is something we can only learn, and do, together -- with one another's support and sometimes, in one another's stead, for there are situations in which it is impossible for particular groups or individuals to forgive those who have violated them or destroyed their loved ones, so devastating has been the violence.

In order to give or receive forgiveness, we need solidarity through community and friendship; we need to be involved in the struggles for justice-love because this can teach us compassion; we need compassion (commitment, irrespective of feelings, not to harm one another, including our enemies); we need humility (awareness that the ground on which we stand is common ground); we need to be honest with ourselves about what has happened (what we and/or others have done); we need to be able to imagine ourselves healed, liberated, and transformed; and we need to pray hard and meditate well on these things.

My primary concern as I draw the book to closure is to underscore what I believe to be its basis: the spiritual and political truth that, far beyond being simply a personal option, forgiveness is the hope of the world. Learning it together is the only way we can begin to move beyond the resentments and violence that are tearing our collective and individual bodies apart. Learning forgiveness, if we are, will involve our learning nonviolence as a shared way of life. Nonviolence is, at root, a public, collective commitment, not simply an option for individuals.

Learning forgiveness and teaching nonviolence should become the vocation and strongest mission of the church and other religious organizations and movements. This is the only way any religion can truly be "a light to the nations."

Summary of Liturgical Resources

I have included several liturgical resources here which I have written for particular occasions over a period of more than twenty years. The reason I have added them is to demonstrate that, yes, it is possible to move away from "right thought" about JESUS (various orthodox and classical Christologies) in order to celebrate the Sacred Spirit and the JESUS, as well as the humankind and creaturekind, presented in these pages! It can be done liturgically. Much of it is being done all over the Christian world by feminists, womanists, mujeristas, and other theologians of healing and liberation. These few liturgical pieces represent one small effort in this direction.

A Study Guide for Saving Jesus

This is a new opportunity for me and maybe for you to be able to work together as author and reader. The purpose of these materials and the online workbook is to provide a forum to explore some of the issues raised for folks (myself included) in Saving Jesus: From Those Who Are Right. Let me tell you a little about how this idea of putting a workbook online came to be.

It took years to write Saving Jesus. When I finally turned it into the publisher in March 1999, it was (like the world it describes) still unfinished. Every day, every conversation, every world and local event to catch my attention, called forth some new awareness of something I might have said in the book, or said differently. I tell my students that, at its best, theology is a work in progress. It is never complete, never closed as canon, never a finished dogma or final statement. Good theology is a living, relational project, able to be seasoned and strengthened only as it is shared, studied, and revised.

This is what I am hoping for with Saving Jesus. To be true to its relational spirit, the book needs engagement, critique, and ongoing "enlargement" through the lives and responses of its readers. Not that I will rewrite the book, but rather that you and I together will re-frame its meanings as it takes on a life of its own, however large or small, through us.

I hope that this online workbook will become, over time, a collaborative theological adventure. I must confess that I don't understand the mechanics of how this is going to work! My editorial mentors at Fortress Press, as well as my more computer literate friends, will be helping me as we go. These colleagues and I will be including, here at this Web site, some of your contributions to this conversation. We will not be able to include everything, of course, but we will be trying to make space for whatever seems to us to most creatively stretch or challenge the spiritual and political implications of Saving Jesus: From Those Who Are Right. You can reach me by e-mail at savingjesus@juno.com.

I know you will understand why I must respond primarily (or maybe only, depending upon the volume of interest generated at this Web site) to those who actually have read the book or are reading it. I hope readers will want to suggest topics, questions, and content for the workbook. I'll be paying attention to what you say and, I'm sure, will learn a lot with you as we go. May we enjoy ourselves along the way!

Carter Heyward
October 6, 1999

Introduction

Hungering for God

"Hungering for God" is a four-week study guide I have prepared for Advent. It is based on the Preface and Chapters 1 ("Origins") and 2 ("Speaking with Authority"), pages xi-54, of my most recent book, Saving Jesus: From Those Who Are Right--Rethinking What It Means to Be Christian. The materials here are meant to be simply a guide; they can be adapted or revised as needed.

I look forward to receiving your responses if you wish to send them to me at savingjesus@juno.com, or you can write me at Episcopal Divinity School, 99 Brattle St., Cambridge, MA 02138.

Have fun with this, dear sisters and brothers!

Preparation

1. Setting: This is an adult Christian education class that meets once a week for about an hour. (A one-and-a-half to two-hour session would be better but is not necessary).
   
   
2. Number of participants: As few as two or three or as many as wish to participate (class will involve lots of small group conversation, regardless of how many are in it).
   
   
3. Prerequisite: If possible, everyone should have read the Preface and Chapters 1 and 2 of Saving Jesus prior to the first meeting of the class. This is not absolutely necessary, but it will help participants have a stronger sense of the purpose and direction of the class.
   
   
4. Note about reading Saving Jesus: Except for the Preface, the book is not, for the most part, a fast read. While on the surface, it is not hard to read, its content can be challenging. It is often spiritually and intellectually dense and is best read slowly -- a page, or sometimes a paragraph or so, at a time and digested slowly. Excerpts will be read again during the class.
   
   
5. Materials needed: Class participants and leaders can decide how much, if at all, to use these materials for artwork and for recording learnings on a board, etc. Dance and movement would also add wonderful dimensions to this study if folks wish. This is entirely optional and up to those who are taking the class.
   
   
   1. Chalkboard and chalk or newsprint, markers, masking tape; variety of art materials (optional);
      
      
   2. Each participant will need a notebook and pen or pencil;
      
      
   3. Every one should have access to a copy of Saving Jesus From Those Who Are Right.
      
      
6. Theological basis: The theological basis of this study invites participants to make two commitments from the beginning:
   
   
   1. Because all life, including learning about Jesus and hungering for God, is in relation, the study will presuppose that folks are working together, not primarily as individuals throughout. Much of the work each week will happen in small groups (of two, three, or four people).
      
      
   2. Because all theology, like all life, is grounded in God, each session should begin and end in brief periods of silence and/or prayer, invoking the Spirit's guidance in this work.

Week 1

The Social and Personal Bases of Our Spiritual Hunger

1. Silence/Prayer, following this reading:
   
   "I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you." (Jesus, according to Matthew) 5 mins.
   
   
2. Introduction of participants (in classes with no more than twelve to fifteen members): Each person gives her or his name plus one hope (briefly stated) for the study. This is always a tricky part of a course, since some folks will talk longer than they realize. The designated leader should stress the need for brevity at this point. A good way of helping people get to know each other is to have a coffee hour, dessert party, or other informal gathering before or after each class meeting. 5 mins.
   
   
3. Setting the theological and pedagogical stage: Someone presents the two theological bases stated above: that all life is "in relation" and that everything we do and are is "in God," hence the emphasis on working in groups, not alone, and beginning and ending the time together each week in silence and/or prayer. 5 mins.
   
   
4. Interplay of social and personal: Group reads aloud pages 36-37 (beginning "What we know about God" and ending "It all goes together in God"). 5 mins.
   
   
   1. The whole group talks for a few minutes about the significance of this "dynamic interplay of social and personal forces." 5 mins.
      
      
   2. Break into triads, in which each person names and describes briefly a few of the social and personal contexts of their spiritual hunger (hunger for God). "Social" includes racial, ethnic, class, gender, sexual, age, and other contexts. 15 mins.
      
      
   3. Share some of these contexts in the whole group and discuss how they are related to folks' spiritual hunger 10-15 mins.
      
      
5. Silence/prayer and optional closing reading.
   
   
6. Assignment for next session:
   
   
   1. Read as much of the Preface and Chapters

Why it matters

Plans for this book began to stir in me more than twenty years ago when I first taught a course in "Christology" (the study of the person and redemptive work of JESUS CHRIST) at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Years earlier, as a religion major at Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Lynchburg, Virginia, and then as a student at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, I had been fascinated by all the tensions and drama surrounding arguments among Christians over the centuries about who JESUS was and what this CHRIST has been about historically for Christians-and, as importantly, for persons who are not Christian. Throughout my growing interest in Christology -- as a teacher, theologian, priest, and most of all a Christian person in the world -- I have wanted to write about JESUS and/or CHRIST (how to put them together is a core question for many of us). In particular, I have wanted to write about why it matters so much what those of us who are Christian actually believe about JESUS CHRIST, since all along I have known that it does matter. It always has.

It matters because, for two millennia, many followers of JESUS have borne powerful witness to the presence of the Spirit of radical love-making in history, God of justice and compassion, Holy One of wisdom and hope. Despite the widespread institutionalization and cooptation of Christianity by dominant economic and political forces in the West (increasingly, throughout the world), many JESUS-people, or Christians, have struggled courageously to be a Body of Lovers of this earth and its human and other creatures. This root of Christian vocation -- the call to love radically, passionately, and steadfastly -- with our whole heart and soul, mind and body -- is the foundation of JESUS' own faith and work and of his invitation to the rest of us to "go and do likewise." This is why it matters what we think and teach about JESUS CHRIST. But there are other reasons too, many of them terrible, why it matters.

It mattered in the Crusades and in the witchcraze purges of strong women and other heretics in Europe and North America. It mattered on the mission fields in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. It mattered in the relentless drive to eliminate the Native American people, cultures, and religions; in the construction of slavery as an economic, cultural, and theological system in the South; in the Holocaust as "the final solution" to a "problem" in many ways created by the anti-Semitism which Rosemary Radford Ruether has named as "the left hand of Christology." ¹

It has always mattered what Christians believe and pass on to others about JESUS CHRIST. It has mattered to women and children of different races, classes, and Christian cultures, because as the centerpiece of one of the world's foremost patriarchal religions, "JESUS CHRIST" has been used consistently and naturally to put women and children under the authority of fathers and husbands who have learned to assume that they themselves reflect most fully the image of God the Father. Moreover, as a religious system in which "morality" has been reduced too often to sexual control, Christianity has continued for most of the past two millennia to be a movement of men's domination and women's submission "in the name of CHRIST," as Tom F. Driver has noted. ² Christianity has been, in many of its manifestations, a movement to repress those uppity women and men who have dared to resist sexual and gender control

But what we Christians believe about JESUS CHRIST matters not only to people of minority racial, tribal, cultural, and religious heritages and to women, children, and all queer people-by "queer," I mean gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgendered folk, and everyone standing in public solidarity with us. What we preach and teach and think about JESUS CHRIST matters in basic, life-or-death ways to all people, other creatures, and the earth itself. ³ It matters because, for the past several hundred years-and especially here as we turn toward the third millennium, C.E. -- Christianity has been conspiring with capitalism to build a global system of economic, political, spiritual, and psychological control steeped in the material and psychospiritual assumption that the self matters more than anything -- more than communities of any sort, more than others, more than making right relation with others, and certainly more than the earth and creatures that are other than human.

It is true that, as a global movement, Christianity has engendered a Western-style individualism that fosters an aspiration among men and women to become autonomous (albeit male-defined) beings who are entitled to certain possessions, rights, and freedoms of mind and movement. Certainly, this is not all bad -- the right to education, to health care, and to one's own body and reproductive choices are spiritual blessings and should be universal political rights. And many Asian feminist Christians, such as Chung Hyun Kyung and Kwok Pui-lan, and African women like Mercy Amba Oduyoye and Elisabeth Amoah bear powerful witness to the mixed blessings and curses that have been delivered historically to their people by Christian missionaries. ⁴

But Christianity's respect for the individual self does not and cannot bear the moral weight that is absolutely essential today for the salvation of the world from the greed and gluttony and self-absorption of the so-called First World. We First World Christians have had more than enough of what Beverly W. Harrison has aptly called "capitalist spirituality." Our self-preoccupation and self-absorption are the root of the moral rot that we in the Christian West -- and especially in the United States -- have been transporting globally in the name of freedom, democracy, private enterprise, and the good life.

Ironically, many feminists, other political progressives, and theological liberals and radicals of all faith traditions share this deeply moral concern with our sisters and brothers on the "Right," including many fundamentalists of different religions. But those "who are right," I will suggest in this book, propose a solution to the problem of Western self-absorption that is very different from what many feminists, womanists, liberation theologians, and other theological progressives are affirming. In fact, I am proposing in these pages that "those who are right" (of whatever religion or politic) tend to espouse authoritarian, moralistic, and adversarial relationships with those whom they believe to be "wrong" and, in so doing, tend to promote their own ideologies of self-absorption. It is my belief-and it is the basis of this book-that many of us who are caricatured by the Right as being heretical, or wrong, need to be evermore public and enthusiastic in living relational spiritualities that are mutual, passionate (fully embodied and present), forgiving, and nonviolent.

As we move into the twenty-first century, it may be that the only force in the world that comes close to being a serious threat to Christianity's own global capitalist agenda is Islam. In any case, it will matter a great deal in years to come whether we Christians (and others) are genuinely open to learning with people of other faith traditions how to cultivate more truly mutual relation with those whose religious beliefs, tribal customs, racial heritages, sexual/gender identities, and even species may be very foreign to us and so alien as to frighten us.

It is in the Spirit of yearning for mutuality that this book of mine, I trust, has come to be. Over the years, the book has grown progressively smaller! What began as a thirteen-chapter proposal has been whittled down over the past few years into this compact volume. Perhaps, if it were not clear to me that it is time to bring this project to a close, this book would eventually be condensed further into a few pages! Indeed, if I had time and energy to shape it further, it might read something like this:

What the book is about ⁵

Christians are called more than anything to be faithful, not "right." Faithful not to religious systems or creeds; faithful not to particular saviors or institutions; and faithful certainly not to any tradition or custom that requires us to cast out or punish those who seem to us heretical, or wrong, in their beliefs or in their nonviolent customs and behavior. Even when confronted, as we are constantly, with violence around us and among us, Christians are called -- yes, beckoned by the Power of Love in history -- to seek nonviolent ways of responding, so as to call forth the very best in even the very worst of our brothers and sisters. This "revolutionary patience" ⁶ with one another is in keeping with how much we ourselves yearn to be called forth by those who still believe in us -- those who still believe that we are able to be loving, creative, and liberating persons, regardless of how far astray we may have gone.

Through his teaching, healing, and prophetic resistance to state-sponsored and religious-based legalism that disregarded human need, JESUS reflected the incarnate (embodied) Spirit of One who was not then, and is not ever, contained solely in one human life or religion or historical event or moment. God was JESUS' relational power, more specifically his power for forging right (mutual) relation in which JESUS himself and those around him were empowered to be more fully who they were called to be. We today are also empowered by this same mutual relation.

Each and every one of us-whatever our religious, non-religious, or anti-religious identity today -- lives in God. I mean by this that we are all relatives, spiritual kin, bound by a power moving among us that transcends any one time, place, or person and connects our lives and generations and communities far beyond any of our capacities to see many of these connections, much less to understand them. Still, living as we do, in God, it is never too late for any of us, regardless of whether we "believe" in God, to "go and sin no more" -- that is, to come out, whoever we are, and join in the ongoing struggle for right relation with other humans, creatures, and the earth. Oregon artist Betty LaDuke's vibrant painting on the cover of this book represents to me the wonderfully colorful and active "procession" of creatures of many kinds and cultures coming out into our shared power, with JESUS, to god in the world.

In the historical place and moment in which I write, recovering addicts may realize as well as anyone, and better than most, what it means to join in the struggle for right, mutual relation. It means to make amends for the harm we have done (and we are all involved in doing harm) and to walk a spiritual path of recovery one day at a time, never relying solely on ourselves, but rather always drawing strength from our connectedness with sisters and brothers who walk the path with us.

Despite the sexist language and assumptions of its founders and many of its adherents, and despite the narrowly Christian framework that some people continue to impose upon its meetings, Alcoholics Anonymous and some of its Twelve-Step derivatives are filling up church basements with Christians and atheists and Jews and pagans and political conservatives and liberals and others, while the sanctuaries of many mainstream white Protestant churches sit half full. The reason for this seems to me quite simple. Alcoholics Anonymous invites all people to come as we are and, through sharing our vulnerability, to touch our strength and share a Higher Power, however we may experience "Him," or "Her," or "It" -- even if our experience of this Power is a void or a blur, an angry feeling or a painful spot somewhere inside. There is no heretic. No one is right or wrong about the Higher Power. No one is even right or wrong about drinking alcohol unless, in our drinking, our lives have become unmanageable and our behavior irresponsible.

So too with Christian belief. No one is right or wrong about God or JESUS or the Trinity or any other doctrine of faith. No one is even right or wrong in our living unless our lives are becoming unmanageable -- that is, violent -- and our behavior irresponsible, which is what happens whenever we live primarily for our selves and our own, indifferent to others' well-being and often hostile to those whose ways of speaking, dressing, thinking, believing, making culture, or making love may frighten us.

To whom am I writing?

I have written this book as a theological resource for spiritual transformation and social change to those who have had it with churches that make "right thinking" a criterion for membership and usually also for entry into what JESUS called "the kingdom of God." Sisters and brothers, we can be Christians without having to pass any such litmus tests -- and indeed many of us are Christian.

I offer these pages to those who are disturbed not only by the Religious Right but by all self-righteousness that comes dressed in religious garb. There are many ways to live as fully human beings in God. Religious self-righteousness is not one of them.

I write to Jews, Moslems, Buddhists, pagans, and people of other faith traditions and spiritualities who must wonder if a "Christian" is, by definition, a narrow-minded, self-righteous, and often mean-spirited bigot. The short answer is "no." A longer answer is in this book.

I offer the book to Christian liberals, radicals, and others who love JESUS and have no desire to be "right." Keep the faith, good friends. Hold it gently, with an openness to all you cannot know.

I offer this book to feminists, womanists, mujeristas, and other strong, women-loving and men-loving women whose strength and passion are a source of bafflement to most Christian prelates, pastors, and theologians of all colors and cultures. Sisters, may you keep your courage (and humor!).

I offer this as a resource to folks of various faith traditions who share a passion for justice with compassion and good humor. You are the hope of the world!

I write to those who are in recovery from addictions of many kinds-and those in recovery from "church abuse" and from what Dorothee Soelle once called "Christofascism" (violence done by Christians to people of other faith traditions as well as to those Christians have judged to be "wrong"). Yours truly is the realm of God.

I write to those who will not make peace with Christian anti-Semitism, Christian imperialism, the white racism of the Western church, or the class elitism of much Christianity around the world. You are the saviors of God, of JESUS, and of the rest of us.

I offer these pages also to those who (blessed be) will not make peace with the trivialization of, and contempt for, pagans, goddesses, and earth-based spiritualities. Your Wisdom is nourishment for all creatures on this planet and for whomever or whatever else there may be in time and space beyond us.

I offer this book to those academics who are not afraid of simple books, activists who are not afraid of complex ones, and all folks who are too smart to be "right thinking" Christians. Trust your intelligence.

I am also addressing "relational" consultants, organizers, therapists, ministers, and other healers and pastors who are weighted down these days by "professionally correct" ethics and expectations. You and we deserve a more morally honest struggle.

I offer this as a resource to mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles, neighbors and friends, teachers and preachers, priests and religious leaders who want to help raise children "in faith" but who cannot, in faith, raise them up to be "right thinking" Christians. Don't lose heart! It is too important-for the children and for us all.

I write for queer Christians. There are more of us than you may realize. Come on out-there's plenty of work to do, and plenty to celebrate.

I write also on behalf of (if not to) other earth creatures like the maple and moss, nuthatch and hawk, our animal companions both "tame" and wild, as well as the stones and mud and water that meet us in ways sometimes welcoming and life-giving, sometimes terrifying and death-dealing, as in the hurricane which, even as I write, has devastated Honduras and Nicaragua. I do not pretend to understand how it is that we are all connected as members of creation, all of us in God -- especially how we are connected with all that is so terrible and terrifying and deadly. But I believe that, somehow, we are all part of a whole -- and that there are more faces of JESUS on earth, throughout history and all of nature, than we can begin even to imagine -- wherever there is a spark of hope for the sparrow or the child, the sea turtle or the prisoner.

Finally, I offer this resource in and to the Christic Spirit of Life in which we can learn and grow together, and only together, sisters and brothers. My hunch is that the best way to read it may be, for most of you, the way it was written-slowly. I hope you will take the time you need.

Notes

1. Ruether 1979.

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2. Driver 1981.

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3. Chung 1990; Adams 1995; McFague 1993, 1997; Spencer 1996; Rasmussen 1996.

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4. Chung 1990; Kwok 1995; Fabella and Oduyoye 1988.

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5. There are some important christological tasks that I am not attempting in this book, either because, in my judgment, numbers of us have paid enough attention to the concerns or because other theologians are better equipped than I to address certain issues from within their specialized theological disciplines.

In the former instance, for example, I am not interested in probing further the tensions between "JESUS of history" and "CHRIST of faith" emphases in the development of Christian doctrine. This historical pull serves to underscore every generation's efforts to reconstruct "JESUS" or "CHRIST" in its own image, not in itself a problem, but dangerous. I reflected on this danger a decade ago:

The tendency to create divinity in our own image is, to some degree, universal. It is not wrong to create theological and christological images of ourselves.... But... it is destructive of the... world we share to leave the matter there-stuck on one's own "JESUS" or "CHRIST" image. It is wrong to close the canons at the end of one's own story or that of one's people.... In attempting to correct such mistakes, both CHRIST of faith and historical JESUS images have... moved the debate in a circle, back again into a self-defensive posturing which signals the drawing of christological boundaries around our own sacred icons... (1989b, 19-20)

Even to think about taking sides in the "JESUS of history" and "CHRIST of faith" debate, I had come to realize in the mid-1980s, is to perpetuate the patriarchal logic of "either/or" solutions. Not that most thoughtful Christian theologians over the years have intended to do this-as they (I should say, we) have chosen either the human "JESUS" as our focus or his divine life as the "CHRIST," in either case unwittingly downplaying the spiritual significance of the "other side."

We Western Christians do not know very well how to think about power in non-dualistic ways. We normally cannot think of "humanity" and "divinity" in ways that do not imply the "existence" of two different entities or "beings." Ontology, or the study of being itself, as Kwok Pui-lan has noted, is a very Western (dualistic) philosophical interest that runs contrary to much Asian understanding of reality. Assuming that Western Christians cannot simply step outside our historic cultural legacy, in which we have learned so deeply to experience our selves, the world, and God as, in some important ways, separate "beings," how then can we even imagine living life or engaging the JESUS tradition in a non-dualistic manner? The key to this quandary, I believe, is a radically relational experience, perception, and understanding of being itself -- and of doing. This requires us to move on beyond the JESUS of history/CHRIST of faith discussions. This movement is what I am attempting in this book.

The book also is not primarily sociology, psychology, history, or a biblical study. I am not trying here to produce a social, historical, or psychological study of JESUS or the rest of us. Others (usually biblical scholars) have done this, sometimes very well indeed, producing interpretations and assessments of the JESUS story that both challenge and assist large numbers of teachers, students, and others seeking to better understand the staying power (for better and worse) of Christian faith.

For example, I have often heard recently from people in local parishes about how exciting they find Marcus Borg's book, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time (1994), in which we are invited to "meet JESUS" as a "spirit person" and ourselves as well. Feminist students and colleagues often take note of Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza's work, including her 1994 book, Jesus: Miriam's Child, Sophia's Prophet, in which she continues to build a case for "the ekklesia of wo/men" as a "discipleship of equals," in which JESUS participated as one of us. Many students of radical biblical, feminist, (and other) liberation theologies have been energized during the last decade by John Dominic Crossan's Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (1994), in which, employing a sophisticated method of comparative textual analysis, Crossan presents JESUS as an itinerant peasant who lived and taught a simple, but revolutionary, spirituality and politic. Easier to overlook on this side of the Atlantic is a compelling, informative study on the social history of JESUS' time and place, Lydia's Impatient Sisters (1995), by German feminist biblical scholar Luise Schottroff. I mention these particular books because each of them is making an important difference in contemporary discussions about JESUS among academics in religion, especially biblical scholars. This discourse continues to be largely white, although, in the United States especially, increasing numbers of people of color are taking part.

It is not intended to be a book simply of special interest to other white lesbian feminist Christians. In these times, the voices of theologians of color speaking about JESUS are present and clear among us -- and, still, they are marginalized in the pretentious, systemically racist realm of religious studies. As long as the academic guilds and mainstream religious institutions like churches and seminaries continue to be predominantly patriarchal and Euro-centric in shape and substance, the explicitly christological work of such theologians as James H. Cone, Jacquelyn Grant, Kelly Brown Douglas, Delores S. Williams, Rita Nakashima Brock, Chung Hyun Kyung, and Kwok Pui-lan will continue to be "received" within the academy as well as by mainline churches as representing "special interests" rather than all of us.

Like many sister and brother theologians of color, I too teach, speak, and write with a special hope that "my people" will be empowered by my words and that "other folks" will study their lives in relation to what I am doing. I want my theological work to reflect my being a white middle-class lesbian feminist Christian priest and academic, and I am satisfied that these details of my identity infuse this book. Still, like Delores Williams, Kwok Pui-lan, our gay brother Robert Goss, the peace activist Jim Douglass, and others who do Christology that is either issue-oriented (queer justice, peace, etc.) or intentionally reflective of our social locations (African American, Asian, queer, etc.), I am aware that my work is still "received" by many in the academy and mainline churches as the "special interest" pleading of a lesbian feminist.

Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza has been critical of many women theologians on this very question of whether we make our claims strongly enough for the universal validity of our work. What Schüssler Fiorenza evidently fails to see is that almost all theologians who clearly articulate the social bases of our communities, identities, and theologies do so in order to strengthen the universal import of what we are saying. Her complaint is disingenuous, coming from a sister who has helped put women-centered biblical studies on the map. Schüssler Fiorenza, after all, is clear that she does not intend to exclude men from her "discipleship of equals," hence her term "wo/men," which is meant to signal gender inclusivity. So too do I, in this book, mean to reach everyone I can -- everyone who is able and willing to reach toward me.

This particular project does not seek to hold primary attention to the social constructs of my being white, female, lesbian, middle-class, relatively able-bodied, or even Christian. So, while it is true that Saving Jesus is not written simply, much less only, "to" or "for" or "about" "people just like me" (an odd and imprecise notion!), this is still a deeply lesbian text. It is a transparently white and middle-class book, and it is very much the handiwork of a Christian woman who prays and walks dogs and hikes and tries, in person and on paper, to trouble the waters of the dominant social order in and well beyond the church. Whatever broadbased appeal the book may have will come, if it does, through my efforts to be true to these very particular roots of my life-the specific communities of people and creatures who make me who I am-in relation to JESUS and everything else.

Preface

1. Origins
Speaking of JESUS
Meeting in God: Beyond self-absorption
In prayer
Re-imaging JESUS, re-imaging ourselves
"Those who are right"
The difference between self-righteousness and right relation
Self-absorbed spirituality
Who is JESUS CHRIST to those who are right?
Loneliness as a root of God, JESUS, and right relation
Suffering, evil, and human impatience
A white Southern Christian girlchild from the "muddled middle"

2. Speaking with Authority
The language of this book
Spiritual authority and knowledge of God
Theological imagination
Postmodern origins: Pitfalls and possibilities

3. Our Power in Mutual Relation
The problem with authoritarian power
Mutual relation: Can it be?
God is relational power
Thinking about "power"
But who are "we"?
And he is fully human and fully creaturely, and so are we
It is calling us to God
She is calling us to embody the (trinitarian) image of God
He is calling us to be holy
And yet...

4. Evil as Betrayal of Mutuality
Thinking about evil Seeking answers to tough questions
Obedience to the Father = the "right" answer
Sin, evil, and fear
God and evil
JESUS and evil
The temptation to betray: Evil generating evil
Fear of our power in relation as root of evil: Peter's denial
Intolerance of ambiguity as root of evil: Rejecting the sacred mysteries
Denial as root of evil: The rich man
Lack of compassion and willingness to do violence as root of evil: The "Holy Innocents"
Living in sin, responding to evil

5. The Passion of JESUS: Beyond Moralism
Moralism as a spiritual problem
What is passion?
Knowing the body as source of passion
Passionate vision
Passion as coming out for justice-love
Passion as solidarity with the poor, outcast, marginalized
Boundary breaking as passionate godding
Faith as basic resource of human passion
The limits of passion
Passion: Hologram of real presence
Passion: Ousia (essence) of incarnation, way of atonement

6. Learning Forgiveness: Way of Compassion
Several critical assumptions
Imaging atonement
The problem with the Christian atonement tradition
Patriarchal logic and blood sacrifice
Through the eyes of God
JESUS CHRIST as adversary
What forgiveness is
Is repentance absolutely necessary?
Compassion and nonviolence: A spiritual path
Compassion, nonviolence, and loneliness
What keeps forgiveness from being idealistic?

Epilogue

Liturgical Resources: Celebrating Resurrection
Blessing the Bread: A Litany for Many Voices
A Eucharistic Prayer
Variations on a Sufi Prayer
Blessing
The Great Thanksgiving: A Rite Based on the Song of Mary
A Eucharistic Litany of Mutuality and Solidarity

Notes

Selected Resources

Acknowledgments

Index