In the rather ironic pronouncement that Barack Obama is not a real Christian, Rod Dreher infers meaning from the following answer by Obama in an interview with Cathleen Falsani - from 2004!
FALSANI: Who’s Jesus to you?
(He laughs nervously)
OBAMA:
Right.
Jesus is an historical figure for me, and he’s also a bridge between God and man, in the Christian faith, and one that I think is powerful precisely because he serves as that means of us reaching something higher.
And he’s also a wonderful teacher. I think it’s important for all of us, of whatever faith, to have teachers in the flesh and also teachers in history.
First, this is a stupid debate to be having. However, it reveals more about the literacy of the debaters than it does the Christianity of Barack Obama. It is ironic because Dreher’s very point of contention here is the evidence of America’s theological illiteracy. The inference that Dreher draws here is clearly ignorant itself of the image of Jesus as mediator (bridge) between God and humankind - an image that is quite in keeping with orthodox pronouncements of the role of Jesus in history. To suggest that the statement that Jesus is a wonderful teacher is somehow heterodox would be even more ignorant.
Joe Carter says that, “Jesus is not merely a “bridge” between God and man, Jesus is both fully-human and fully divine.” This is true. But again, to say that Obama is not a real Christian because of what he did not specifically say is a red herring. Perhaps both of these authors would have done well to read Martin Marty’s learned claims to the contrary here.
Where here does Obama deny the divinity of Christ? Is every Christian supposed to pass specific tests of orthodoxy using only approved creedal language when asked this question? If so, we can trash our entire corpus of hymnody since the relationship of Jesus and “what that means” to each of us is expressed in so many more words than the creeds of the Church. What if he said Jesus is his friend like the hymn “Oh what a friend we have in Jesus”? Equally heterodox?
To say that Christ is the bridge between God and humankind is quite in keeping with the function of Jesus’ reconciliation with humankind and is an image as old as Augustine’s influence from the Neoplatonic chain of being from Plotinus (see Confessions Book VII). What would you deem a good Christian response to this question? Would it have to be in the language of the Nicene or Apostles’ Creed to pass the test of “true” Christianity? What if we used the language of other confessions of the church that use different language to express this divinity? Also heterodox?
This is a red herring because it infers a meaning from a statement that can have a rather orthodox interpretation if you actually know your theology be it Augustine or Kierkegaard, among others. All would be quite comfortable with the bridge metaphor as an orthodox statement of the faith because they used that metaphor to explain the function of the divinity of Christ as the true human even as he was true God.
The theological illiteracy is from Dreher and Carter here, not Obama. As McCain might say, they seem not to understand the various descriptions of the person and work of Christ in the history of the church in keeping with orthodox teaching and the various creeds and confessions. Karl Barth’s The Humanity of God might be instructive here since neither author appears to have read something like that. Kierkegaard is also informative. Or perhaps St. Paul. This is a good little article from a Catholic source that a quick Google search popped up. Or you could just go straight to the Pauline Epistles for more.
I find it hard to understand how the religiously illiterate, as both Carter and Dreher demonstrate in these absurd assertions, have voice in the media regarding religion and supposedly speak for Christianity.
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