I was reading an article a bit earlier about the comments made recently by the Starbucks CEO concerning his commitment to gay marriage regardless of how said commitment will or will not affect the company’s bottom line.  The site on which I read that article linked to another article in which Kirk Cameron revealed a new Christian movie he’s making in conjunction, apparently, with Liberty University.  Somebody from Liberty apparently said that they, Liberty University, were hoping to produce “tens of thousands of graduates” like Kirk Cameron, meaning tens of thousands of graduates with conservative evangelical convictions.  The article I was reading expressed a shivering horror at the thought of thousands of Kirk Camerons.

That’s all quite interesting, but, for our purposes, it’s just preface as it’s frankly immaterial to what I’d like to explore, namely the premise behind a particular comment in the comments thread of the article.  It read:

Kirk Cameron and the folks at Liberty University desperately need to learn that Christians don’t believe in the Bible or follow the Bible. We believe in and follow Jesus Christ and measure everything — included all the words in the Bible — against the prime directives he taught: “Love neighbor, love enemy and treat others the same way you want to be treated.”

Now, I’m thankful for such a clear statement because it will help me address a premise that often goes unspoken (while being frequently employed, nonetheless) by advocates of leftist versions of Christianity:  the idea of a Bible-less Jesus.  Let me address this in a bullet-point format:

• If one wants a pro-gay Jesus, it is absolutely imperative that he or she does what this commenter has done:  denigrate the Bible, subjugating it to Jesus.  The actual words of the Bible can be quite a hindrance to a revisionist Christology.

• It is also important that one try to disguise the end-run one is attempting to run around the Bible by clothing the concurrent “elevation” of Christ in very grand terms:  we “measure everything” by Jesus.  I mean who does not want to do that?  Who wants to argue against a high view of Jesus?

• And finally – and this has to be done very quickly so that it will not be noticed – you want to allude to the more socially acceptable sayings of Jesus (this will change by the year), even risking actual quotes, as this commenter does, while hoping against hope that nobody asks the very awkward next question:  “Where did you get those statements: love your enemy, do unto others?”

• Now, it is unlikely you will be asked this because those who desperately want a revised Jesus will be so thrilled at the idea of a Bible-less Jesus that they will not want to ask.  If a conservative asks you, simply accuse of him of “hatred” and “intolerance” and “fundamentalism.”  If, however, one who agrees with you asks about the statements, you’ll want to say:  “Well, from the Bible, of course.  But we follow Jesus, not the Bible.”

• Hopefully, hopefully, they will be satisfied with that without asking the next awkward question:  “Well, then, if you still have to draw statements from the Bible to describe this Jesus-above-the-Bible, does that mean we have to accept everything He said in the Bible, including those parts upholding traditional marriage terminology from Genesis, and those parts against fornication, adultery, etc?”

• If this happens, don’t panic.  Throw out some vague allusion to “scholars” having proved that those unpleasant parts were “added later.”  That will almost certainly silence them.  (Hope they don’t ask further technical questions about what you just said.)

• Above all else, you cannot let the conversation steer towards an even more fundamental question:  “Is it possible for us to have any notion of who Jesus Christ was and is apart from the words of the Bible?  What do we know about Him that we haven’t learned from scripture?  How do we construct this Bible-less Jesus?”  If this is asked, you’re on a dangerous path indeed.

So there you have it:  the best way to hold to the modern canard of a Bible-less Jesus who can then be appealed to in support of the ethical buttresses of modernity is to couch the whole enterprise in pious but empty words that most people will not question.  It is an audacious project founded on an utterly untenable and illogical premise, but advocates of such an approach can rest easy in the knowledge that most modern people rarely think about the unspoken premises behind contemporary sloganeering.  This fact was proven in the article I have reference here.  Beneath it were 3 or 4 comments.  All of them affirmed the original post’s contention.

One said:  “That’s exactly how I feel.”  Case closed.

Let me be clear:  Christians do indeed worship Jesus, not the Bible.  However, Christians also realize that the Bible is God’s Word and is the means by which we know about Jesus and what He said.  To try to construct a new Jesus without recourse to the content of the Bible is absurd, but to do so while selectively picking certain parts of that same Bible and isolating them from the whole is utterly absurd.