Ministry: http://www.arbc.net
Preacher: Matthew R. Perry, Lead Pastor
When you ask the average American about what they think of Jesus, you’ll receive a lot of titles and meanings he has for them. There will be times when, like the time when I was sitting in a chair at Great Clips (you can tell this was a few years ago) the stylist and I were talking about our spiritual journeys—hers was not even close to mine. When I finally asked her, “What do you think of Jesus?” She said, “Not much.”
But others do. On my shelves, I have four books that fascinate me in this regard:
Jesus in America: Personal Savior, Cultural Hero, National Obsession by Richard W. Fox
Americal Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation by Jon Meacham
Jesus: Made in America by Stephen Nichols
American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon by Stephen Prothero
Each of these books has a similar thesis, but it is best said on the back of Prothero’s book.
Jesus the Black Moses; Jesus the Jew; Jesus the Hindu sage; Jesus the Haight-Asbury hippie: these Jesuses join the traditional figure of Jesus Christ in American Jesus… Our nation’s changing images of Jesus, Stephen Prothero contends, are a kind of looking glass into the national character. Even as most Christian believers cleave to a traditional faith, other people give Jesus a leading role as folk hero, pitchman, or cultural icon.
Do you see what happens here? Many (maybe you) look at Jesus through your financial, political, cultural, and personal lens. He has a lot of descriptions here—and many more. But I did not see this (maybe because this is about America’s view).
These books are good. Of the four, only one is an avowed Christian—the rest are academics looking at the culture. But these are helpful for me. Am I looking at Jesus through a personal lens, making Him what I want Him to be? And as a pastor, I want all of you and all those around us to see Jesus through the lens of Scripture and not personally.
Suppose you’ve worked your way through this and are staying “biblical?” Danny Akin, President of Southeastern Seminary in Wake Forest, NC, has some questions:
When you consider the passion of the Christ, the suffering and death of Jesus, what do you see? What do you think? Is He simply a martyr dying for what He believed in like a Socrates, Savanorola, Michael and Margaretha Sattler, Mahatma Gandhi, or Martin Luther King Jr.? Was He a fool who believed He was actually the Son of God and was put to death amid His delusions of grandeur? Was He a blasphemer and false Messiah who was a threat to the well-being of Israel? Was He a political revolutionary that Rome wisely extinguished before His flame blazed out of control? Did He simply suffer the misfortune of irritating the religious leaders, who out of envy (15:10) appealed to the political pragmatism of Pilate to get rid of Him? I didn’t see him called “king” or “Lord.”
In the middle of this passage in Mark 15:1-20, Pilate asks the crowd, “What shall I do with the man you call King of the Jews?” This title, “King of the Jews” is found in this account as well as the longer account in John 18 and 19. They all reacted differently: some were intrigued, some were enraged, some were shaming, some were afraid—what about you?
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