Writers interested in history of the West periodically take up the matter of the human experience of the life of Jesus. Interest ebbs and flows, and seems to relate to whatever the current preoccupation may be for student/scholarly activity, perhaps engaged, in historical and/or religious contexts. The interest seems not a major one in secular society, but tolerated and variously or broadly interpreted. Interest rises when the concepts of the author have some mythical idea that leads to a novel – as was the case during the last few years when an author proposed that Jesus married, had children, and his physical descendants are present in modern society. When objections to the fanciful book were lodged, the author pointed out that it was a novel, and clearly identified as such. Polls revealed that a high percentage of its readers believe it to be true. Scholarship is necessary to meet such an event, to provide the world with a record that can be verified as factual so as to form cause for knowledge, belief, understanding, and, perhaps, fodder for history records. This too can be made confusing or garbled in the patterns of communication. For example, the Renan statement of the 19th century that Jesus was not born in Bethlehem is a fact in that one might say: It is a fact that Renan has Jesus born in Nazareth. The fact relates to Renan’s belief not that of Jesus’ mother. The Bible reports Bethlehem, and that is a biblical fact, believed commonly as a physical fact. So we shift to accenting sources, and many persons will not pick up the refinement. What is the support for the report of Renan, and what is the source for the biblical report? Somewhere along the way, someone will ask if it makes any difference. This investigation may continue at great length, and holds interest for a great many students of history. Currently, I have just received an advertisement for still another biography of the historical Jesus, a new publication. Some readers will decide on the historical Jesus presuming the latest report with no personal exposure to the biblical account. They may refuse any concept of inspiration.
Today we are appalled that some of our favorite historical personages owned slaves in the land of the free and the home of the brave. Slave owners included great forefathers like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Henry Clay, even some church ministers. When we violate humanity and Scripture, arguments become contrived, as in the defense of slavery (the peculiar institution) given force of a woven logic. It is necessary to the economy, it is an ancient practice, it is supported by the laws of the land, and the extensions continue. One of the extensions is that the slave is of another race, and inferior in development to the enslaving race. Even some abolitionists believed that unproved allegation. We now know that the rationalizations were, and are, unfair and untrue. Another was that the slavery event meant that slaves would be exposed to the Christian gospel therefore the practice was given divine approval for benefit.
This kind of self-settlement on process of thought to determine outcomes continues. In current life, persons who are interested in population statistics have designed laws that will, unless amended, require religious institutions to assist in various physical processes, in medical terms, to prevent the live birth of the fetus of a pregnant woman, if she declares that she does not want the birth to occur. Today, July 18, 2012, hearings will take place in Washington, D.C. when leaders of Christian institutions, Catholic and Protestant, (including the president of a college I attended) will present arguments against the legislation as defiant of the matter of conscience, and defying religious liberty in the context that has held for centuries. Consensus has now changed, or is breaking the lines of the accepted thought context of history. As we now have it the government has decided we must have a more secular public square. We are informed that facts become fodder for reinterpretation. In God We Trust, is a motto applied only as a cultural phrase. A purpose of Christian education is to know and work for a pattern that is supportive of unaided humanism. What is to be done with Scripture supporting life, supporting meaning of gender relationships, and other factors now violated by law? All persons have human rights under law. There ought to be no doubt that to force change in the meaning of morality as defined in Scripture is a violation of rights for persons of Christian faith, vital to the understanding of morality and conscience to conduct. Each person has rights as a human being in any country. Persons of faith have spiritual rights as well. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020