Christology Part I: The Need for Low Christology For The Urban Conxt

Christology is the study of Jesus’ person and his work. In other words, it is a study of who Jesus is and what he does. Reformed theology emphasizes what is called High Christology. High Christology focuses on Jesus being God and totally other from humankind. In other words, it’s a Christology that starts with Jesus Christ’s Godness.  One could argue that the reformed system depends on High Christology, because we only know grace in the reformed system by knowing God’s supreme transcendence. We tend to view grace through the lens of God existing in his transcendent heaven dealing with human sin from his sense of superiority from mankind. To be sure we do not formally agree with this statement, but we implicitly tend to view grace from this perspective. Consequently, reformed circles tend to shy away from Jesus’ humanness which is a very important part of Christology. Therefore, we have a Christ that tends to be too transcendent to deal with human kind.  In my experience working in the urban context, transcendence tends to be not trusted. Therefore, we have to bridge people in our neighborhoods to Jesus not through the high Christology that makes us comfortable, but through low Christology that connects Jesus’ humanity with their humanity.

High Christology without properly viewing Jesus’ humanity has led to five main portraits of Christ that tend to make Jesus incompatible with the urban context:

1.      Jesus as an authoritarian Lord who reacts in authoritative ways

2.      Jesus as a moralist constantly judging those who do not fit that “moral” code

3.      Jesus as a wrathful adversary

4.      Jesus as an unquestionably obedient son of his Father

5.      Jesus as a God who responds only to “sinful” acts [1]

These things tend to turn people off from the LORD. Let’s briefly examine a few reasons these characteristics might turn people off. In my next essay we will examine why these things tend to turn people off from the LORD as we present him.

 First, while not denying Jesus’ right to exercise his authority in his people’s lives, our view of Christology tends to make Christ not a God exercising proper authority, but a dictator that will punish his people brutally for disobedience.  In the urban context, people tend to distrust authority. In the urban context, one gains authority through building trust and respect through relationships. Honestly, a lot the distrust of authority comes from real encounters of injustice from dealing with police. In addition, the urban context tends to have a lot of fatherless households. I have experienced that as a male people tend to trust you less, because a lot of people in my neighborhood through no fault of their own had their fathers abandon them. For instance, I have experienced a greater sense of leadership and authority over the Harambee kids on my crew. That sense of leadership and authority did not come from the fact that I am tall black and I can talk loud. On the contrary, it came from years of walking with the same group of kids in order to gain a measure of respect and trust. Yet, we tend to paint Jesus in light of his kingship and underemphasized that he gained the right to his kingship through serving people and walking amongst the disenfranchised. We must remember that the disciples followed Jesus the man before they got to the point where they worshipped him as God. We must emphasize Jesus’ right to have authority, because he was willing to get dirty amongst the people as opposed to simply emphasizing his deity. In the same way, we must lead people to the divinity of Christ by helping them respect how he connects with their humanity.   This emphasis will create a sense of respect for Jesus that is required in the urban culture. Respect has an important place in communities that tend to be overlooked by the mainstream or exploited by the mainstream. T.I. once said: “Ion't know what ya do for your respect, but I'ma die for mine”.[2]We want people to recognize his deity, but we do that by building their respect for Jesus through emphasizing his humanity.

Secondly, we make him a moralist that puts in place a moral code that no one can possibly meet and then judging people accordingly with no sense of grace. People in the urban context, just like any person in postmodern America, do not like feeling like Jesus, the Moralist judges them at every turn.  In church culture, we tend to make up rules that define what it means to be a Christian. These rules tend to be extra biblical. For instance, we tend to focus on whether or not people have their pants sagging rather than leading them to the savior. We want to make people talk without cursing. We want people to stop smoking weed, then come to church. We want to make people conform to holiness before they get a chance to meet the savior. This way of thinking contradicts what Reformed Theology holds at it center: holiness based on indicatives not imperatives. We can focus on all the rules that we have set-up and not the people that God has given us. The harvest is ripe in the entire world including the urban context. The savior says that: "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest." [3] Jesus expects morality from his followers, the Sermon on the Mount, teaches us this fact. Yet, he does not expect those outside of the church to get everything as soon as they come into his presence. Evidence that we tend to present Jesus and ourselves this way comes from my own experience. There have been times when people around me have been cursing, drinking, smoking weed, and they apologize to me, because I am a Christian. They do this apologizing out a sense of respect, but more out of the sense that churches have presented Jesus, the Moralist, and not Jesus that allows people to have flaws.  Jesus did not expect people to scrub up around him and neither should we expect that of other people.

Thirdly, we tend to make Jesus out as a constant adversary to those not in the church. Jesus himself says: “I have not come to save the righteous, but sinners”[4] This reason does not need much explanation. In the gospels, Jesus’ harshest critiques are not to the gentiles that needed to get into line. His harshest critiques were usually against the church folks. In today’s church, we tend to have a hyper critical attitude toward those outside the church and against each other. We usually go into these neighborhoods in the ghetto with an attitude that every facet of the neighborhood needs to be fixed. We (I say we because I am guilty too) can tend to think we need to redeem people of every facet of their lives that do not line up with middle class values. Yet, we miss that these neighborhoods' have people in them made in God’s image. For instance, I have learned about true community from my time living in my neighborhood. People in my neighborhood tend to share resources a lot easier than people I have ever seen before. They do not mind inviting you into their house to hang out. They do not mind sharing their food with you and making you feel welcome. Every person’s house I have been in has gone out of their way to make my wife and I feel welcome and a part of their family. This attitude lines up with how Jesus interacted with those outside of the church. Our LORD invited himself into “sinners” homes. He got accused of being a party boy, because he hung out with the “sinners”. Scriptures say: “The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!'” [5]A Jesus like this communicates better than the Jesus that just is an adversary to everything.

Lastly, we tend to make Jesus into a perfect person that did not defy the social norms of his time. We tend to make the lion of Judah a choir boy. Jesus may have been sinless, but he was definitely no choir boy.  He called the rulers of his day “brood of vipers”. Hood culture does not line up with many of the things we call decency in middle class church culture. We must come to terms with the fact that if we do ministry in an urban context and do not expect our culture to change we have a mistaken notion of doing ministry. Doing ministry in the urban context means that we might have to forsake or adapt our culture to meet the norms. Hood culture seems more adversarial, angry, and controversial. In some ways, that can have validity. In other ways, we can see it as more direct and honest. I appreciate that in working with the kids at Harambee I never have to wonder how they really feel about me. Honestly, we need more truth tellers in our churches who “tell it like it is”. Jesus’ bucking of social norms in his day will connect with those in the urban context who buck against mainstream social norms. They do not want a Jesus that stands for the status quo, but a Jesus that will tell leaders when they have messed up. They want a Jesus that does not fit neatly into the “meek” and “humble” push over. Jesus was “meek” and “humble”, but no push over. He went against social norms for the sake of truth. The Sermon on the Mount was not a pretty speech, but challenged everything the religious institution held dear. When people from the urban context come into our  churches, our norms will be challenged. Jesus did the same thing. These aspects of our LORD’s character if emphasized can have a chance at communicating to the culture in the urban context.

These four reasons generally tend to turn people in the urban context off to Jesus, because we made him too transcendent and not someone they can relate to.  Urban culture is much more here and now and tangible. Therefore, people look for a Jesus to relate to in the here and now rather than a transcendent being that seems to have nothing to do with their here and now. Calvin, while still focusing on High Christology, speaks to the necessity of his humanity:

 …setting the Son of God familiarly before us as one of ourselves. That no one, therefore, may feel perplexed where to seek the Mediator, or by what means to reach him, the Spirit, by calling him man, reminds us that he is near, nay, contiguous to us, inasmuch as he is our flesh. And, indeed, he intimates the same thing in another place, where he explains at greater length that he is not a high priest who “cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Heb_4:15).[6]

In light of Calvin’s quote,  how will we make Jesus recognizable in the urban context? Stay tuned my next blog will try to answer this question.

             

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[1] Hodge, Daniel White. The Soul of Hip Hop: Rims, Timbs and a Cultural Theology. Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Books, 2010. Print., (126) Adapted from Carter Heyward’s four theological portraits of Jesus (Saving Jesus from Those Who Are Right [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999], pp. 18-20).

[2] “A.S.A.P”. Song by T.I.  From the album Urban Legend.  Released 11/30/2004 by Atlantic Recording Corporation for the United States and WEA International Inc. for the world outside of the United States. 

[3] ESV Mat 9:37-38

[4]ESV Luke 5:32

[5] ESV, Mat 11:19

[6] John Calvin. The Institutes of the Christian Religion. Book 2, Chapter 12, Section 1. Electronically Accessed on E-Sword 8/11/2013. 

The Need For Contexualized Churches In The Reconciliation and Justice Movement

It seems en vogue to do to plant churches committed to social justice and reconciliation. Four ingredients generally describe these type churches.  Ingredient one you must have a well-intentioned white male that will take on the responsibility for leading the church. Two you must find an African-American pastor to walk with the well intentioned white male. Three you must have a core group of middle class folks that have caught a hold of the vision of reconciliation and justice for the poor. Fourth you must identify a place where this wonderful vision of reconciliation and justice will take place. Usually we pick a predominantly black neighborhood without many social, economic, and structural resources. In other words, we pick the ‘Hood.

 Many well-meaning middle class Christians white and black go into low income black neighborhoods with good intentions, but ill equipped to create a Christian community that is for the people in the neighborhood. As a result, we end up creating churches that minister to the ‘hood, but not churches for the people in the ‘hood. We miss that fact that  the Hood is not a tabula rasa for Reformed Culture, but it is a place with an already established culture: Hip Hop. Therefore, the new breed of “Urban Missionaries” must not go into the ‘Hood to live out Micah 6:8 without considering the fact the “Hood has a culture. Urban Church planters must contextualize the gospel for the culture in the hood.

The first reason we must start these churches intentionally considering the culture of the ‘Hood is because the Hood already knows that it has a culture. The only people that have not figure this important fact out are Christians. We have largely ignored this fact. I want to highlight some lyrics from a song from DJ Khaled feat, Trick Daddy, T-Pain, Plies, Rick Ross “I’m So Hood”:

 I'm So Hood (Listen)//I Wear My Pants Below My Waist//And I never dance when I'm in this place//'Cause You And Your Man Is Planning To Hate (I'm So Hood)//And I Got These Golds Up In My Mouth If You Get Closer To My House Then You Know What I'm Taking about// I'm Out The Hood And If You Feel Me Put Your Hands Up (hood)// My Hood Of Niggas Can You Stand Up (I'm So Hood)//If You're Not From Here You Can Walk It Out And You Not Hood //Then You Don't Know What I'm Talking about[1]

These lyrics show that people in the hood are not ashamed of their culture, but they are proud of it. It does not matter if middle class black, white, Asian, Latino, etc. Christians do not think they should have a sense of pride about their culture, because they do not care. The implication of this sense of pride in the culture means that we cannot do church in a traditionally Reformed way and expect that magically black folks in the neighborhoods would want to be a apart. On the contrary, we must see the need to contextualize the unchanging gospel in a changing world.

Secondly we must contextualize the gospel for the culture of the “Hood, because it communicates respect for the people that live there. Despite our experience in doing Urban Ministry we tend to think in our hearts that we have all the answers. If people listen to us, then the community would change. This line of thinking has a dangerous superiority behind it, because it means we do not relate to our neighbors on an equal basis, because we tend to think we are better than them. This attitude communicates disrespect. In his explication of Psalm 8, Jerram Barrs says concerning respect for people:

God has given us such great dignity as those who are made in His image that, as the psalmist says, even God Himself is “mindful” of us. If God is respectful of the glory of our humanity, how much more should we honor the divine image in all those we meet?[2]

People pick up on these attitudes of superiority and they put up barriers in their heart toward us. We merely become another service provider and not a true community for them. We want the attitude that John Perkins describes:

Those who answer the call of commitment develop a very special and mutual relationship with the poor; the poor community becomes their home; the needs and interests of the inner city become their very own. These people I call comrades. You see, God’s love is very personal and own to earth.[3]

Let us think of what the results might be if we came as learners of the culture there and not saviors. What if we sacrificed what we hold dear in our Church culture and planted our churches intentionally using elements of Hip Hop culture? We have the hope of not functioning as service providers and have the distinct possibility of building a community with the neighborhood we work in. If we hold to the ultimate desire of seeing people come to Christ, then we follow in the footsteps of Paul who said:

¹⁹ For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them.

 ²⁰ To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law.

 ²¹ To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law.

 ²² To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some.

 ²³ I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings. [4]

We do not seek to assimilate people from the ‘Hood to church culture. On the contrary, we want to show respect for our brothers and sisters. The ultimate form of respect occurs when we sacrifice our culture in order to make room for the culture of others as Paul did. Does the gospel mean that much to us?

Thirdly,  you can never hope to restore “at risk” communities without the people in the community. The trend that I tend to notice in reconciliation and justice church is that we do a lot of good things in the community, but we often do not intentionally think through long range plans for developing indigenous leadership in the community. We cannot hope to develop any community without that community participating in the life of our congregation and our ministries. Perkins says:

Comrades learn from one another and help each other grow. Reshaped through the purifying and refining of the convert process, those who have transplanted themselves make a positive and vital contribution. At the same time, the need for local indigenous leadership doesn’t diminish but intensifies as we recognize firsthand the need for visible, strong leadership relevant to the aspirations and needs of the black community.[5]

 We usually develop leadership from within. If we do not have people from the community apart of our church you do not have a pool of people to develop leadership. As a corollary, you will have a sprinkling of people come to your church, because of relational investment over years of working in the community. Yet, you might find developing leaders from  the community for the community difficult. If you do not have a pool of people from the community in your church you do not have many options for leadership from the community to take root. John Perkins says about developing leaders:

We have seen over the years that the key to bearing lasting fruit is not in developing programs. The key is in developing people-leaders. I believe that developing creative leaders is both the most essential and the most difficult part of Christian community development. It was the heart of Jesus’ strategy. It must be the center of our strategy, too.[6]

Consequently, we have to start thinking about the contextualization of our churches.

Lastly, we seek to build the church and not programs. Our goal in doing justice and pursuing reconciliation is not because it is cool or looks innovative on paper. On the contrary, the goal behind all that we do as a congregation should be to build God’s church. Contextualization of Hip Hop culture does not aim to be cutting edge or innovative, but it aims to build God’s people. The Great Commission was not about building programs or innovative church models, but about building the body. We aim to make disciples. Jesus says: “19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." [7] Jesus aims to make disciples and so should we. Perkins says about the importance of Evangelism:

Christian community development cannot happen without the work of evangelism. The goal of Christian service to the urban poor is not programs that change the environment a little bit here and little bit there. Instead, we are praying for the Holy Spirit to overturn the power of darkness. Conversion brings about not only spiritual change but also development in individuals, and as those individuals take leadership, they bring about the development and conversion of others.[8]

Contextualization will afford  us more of an opportunity to make disciples and not just programs, which will build God’s Church.

In conclusion, these four reasons for contextualization do not make an exhaustive list, but I want my writing to spark the conversation. I hope we can add more to what I have already written. Let’s continue doing the work of reconciliation and justice to the poor, but with an eye toward contextualizing our churches for the ‘Hood.

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[1] DJ Khaled. “I’m So Hood”. Produced by The Runners, from 2007 album We The Best. Track #5.

[2] Barrs, Jerram. The heart of evangelism. Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2001. Print.. (193)

[3] Perkins, 163

[4] ESV 1Co 9:19-23

[5] Perkins, 164--165

[6] Perkins, John. Beyond charity: the call to Christian community development. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 1993. Print  (74)

[7]ESV,  Mat 28:19-20

[8] Perkins, 87