Evangelical culture tends to have certain key phrases to describe theological issues. Typically, these phrases are very well-recognized and simplistic; in fact, many times these phrases oversimplify complex theological issues, to the point where they articulate an individualistic belief system solely interested in death and the afterlife.
A very common evangelical question is “do you accept Jesus Christ?” (some may add, “as your personal Lord and Savior,” but this addition does little to change the meaning of the question). An important question, certainly, but I think its implications go far beyond the most common interpretations. Some of these are:
· A belief in Jesus Christ; namely that he is God, he died and rose again from the dead.
· Realizing that Jesus Christ will advocate for humanity before a wrathful God, granting access to heaven.
· In more prosperity-centered frameworks, accepting Jesus is the ticket to finally achieving the blessings of God.
· And, perhaps more common than all these others, a belief in the Lordship of Jesus as the personal authority over an individual’s life. Ethics & personal behavior are determined by the teachings of Jesus.
Many of these have elements of truth, and it’s always dangerous to elevate one line of thinking as the one true understanding of such a multi-layered and complex issue. Nonetheless, there are other implications of this statement that describe more completely what it means to “accept Jesus.”
Jesus’ constant message to those interested in him was, “Follow me.” He told it to just about anyone: his disciples (Mt 4:19, Mt 9:19), hated tax collectors (Mt. 9:19) and wealthy leaders (Mk 10:21). Throughout the words of Jesus it becomes apparent how central actually following Jesus is to our spiritual life: “Following Jesus is what makes us Christians.”[1]
This call is central, because the call to follow Jesus brings us into a much fuller relationship with God. The disciples were physically with Jesus, participated in the proclamation of his Kingdom, and many ultimately shared in the same destiny – the cross. Through following Jesus his followers were able to understand Jesus’ nature, with the comfort that they were still following – they were following Jesus’ example and knew the resurrection at the end of the story (1 Pe 2:21-25). Nonetheless, their experience of suffering and difficulty brought them closer to the heart of Jesus because they obeyed Jesus’ command to follow him.
Following after Jesus became an essential part of each disciple’s identity. In the first century CE students ‘followed’ their rabbis, following every aspect of their teaching and being well-known as members of their teachers’ philosophy and practice. But for that small group of disciples, following Jesus meant accepting the identification with the oppressed and marginalized. Ultimately, A Christian who accepts Jesus must accepting his death on the cross, and even more, make that experience a fundamental aspect of his/her identity.
So, Jesus’ call to follow him is an invitation to restructure and reconsider a person’s fundamental identity, which will almost always conflict with other sources of identity within a particular society. Jürgen Moltmann’s The Crucified God articulates this position much better than I ever could:
“Christian identity can be understood only as an act of identification with the crucified Christ, to the extent to which one has accepted the proclamation that in him God has identified himself with the godless and those abandoned by God, to whom one belongs oneself.”
In this fuller view, accepting Jesus means also a rejection of the basic assumptions about how the world works. And that’s not always easy: Moltmann speaks of an “inner homelessness” Christians should feel in a society, knowing that their basic nature has been altered through the identification and association with the crucified Jesus.
[1] Jon Sobrino, Fuera de los pobres no hay salvación. Most of my thought here comes from Sobrino’s work. One of the benefits of being a Religion/Spanish double major is the ability to study liberation theology.
