Jesus and Contemporary Christology

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For many Christians, the concept of social justice is linked to Christology in that if detached from its origins it becomes merely a human endeavour. Many of the principles of contemporary Social Justice movements are inextricably linked to Christianity by way of Jesus and his message.

The Salvation Army is a Christian organisation that aims to help the poor in our society, those who cannot help themselves. Their official position on social justice is that Jesus Christ is the answer to humanities deepest need, and that Christians should apply his teachings of love and compassion to all human beings, especially those in need.

Caritas is a Catholic social Justice organisation which utilises the message of Jesus in terms of its' Social Justice mission. The Caritas slogan Compassion in Action, clearly shows the link between the organisation and the principle teachings of Jesus, namely Compassion, as does their vision statement, which includes the bible quotation

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.

Cheap College Papers on Jesus and Contemporary Christology

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind,

To let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lords favour."

(Luke 4 16-1)

These organisations along with many other social justice movements aim to practise compassion and perpetuate equality regardless of social stigma, and it is this endeavour that they are inextricably linked to the teachings of Jesus, but is it Jesus the Christ of Faith or the Jesus of History which inspire these movements?

Jesus in his time, the Jesus of History, was a Jew who lived in First Century Jewish Palestine, which was ruled indirectly by the Roman empire. To Judea in the South, a circle of religious Jewish aristocratic elites collaborated with the Romans, while Rome ruled in the North, Galilee, through Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great.

There were three main societal systems in this era, the hierarchical system, the peasant and the purity system. The hierarchical system was characterised by the dominance of males in society. The purity system was instituted by the temple leaders and excluded portions of society, including the poor and women, due to 'ritual uncleanliness'. The table on the overhead shows the characteristics of the purity system. The purity system created deep inequalities within Jesus' society, inequalities which he sought to eradicate. The third system of the society was the peasant system, which created a wide gulf between the rich and the poor, the worthy and the unworthy. Although there were three social systems in Jesus' time, the most socially unjust was the purity system, and it is this system which I will discuss in terms Jesus and Social Justice.

The main message Jesus was preaching was that of compassion and love to all humans, which is basically summed up in John 1 4-5 where Jesus says;

"I now give you a new commandment Love on another just as I have loved you, so you must love on another."

This main ideal of compassion and love meant, in the context of Jesus' message, that these principles should be practised in spite of the social stigmas, such as the purity system, which might have prevented the practise of compassion and love.

This idea of "compassion in action" is shown throughout the gospels, both in parables and Jesus' actions, but it is most clearly defined in these three examples; the good Samaritan parable, the story of the menstruating woman and the examples of Jesus healing the 'impure'.

The good Samaritan parable was when a traveller lay injured on the road, left for dead by many , including Jewish religious leaders, until a Samaritan traveller helped him and payed for him to stay at an inn, or hostel. On the surface this story appears to be about compassion and love to strangers, which it is, but it also has a deeper two-fold message. Under the purity system, both Samaritans and corpses were considered to be 'impure'. The first message of the parable criticises the Jewish leaders and people who did not help the injured traveller, who looked like a corpse, hence advocating compassion over social structures such as the purity system. By showing the Samaritan acting compassionately, the parable is directly criticizing the purity system as under the purity system Samaritans were considered to be unclean, and hence second rate citizens.

The story of the menstruating woman again shows Jesus' advocacy of compassion over purity. The story says that a woman who had been bleeding for 1 years secretly touched Jesus in a crowd to be healed. When Jesus noticed this he addressed the woman and healed her directly. To understand the significance of this action, it must be understood that blood and bleeding women were considered ritually unclean. Upon discovering himself touched by an impure person, Jesus should have, according to his society, gone to a cleansing bath and ritually cleansed himself. By not doing this, and healing the woman from her affliction, Jesus is clearly advocating compassion over social conventions, such as the purity system.

At the time of Jesus, all the maimed ill and diseased were considered to be ritually impure. As well as suffering their afflictions, these people suffered from the social stigma of 'impurity' which excluded them from many aspects of daily life, including religious life. Jesus in his life absolved these people from impurity by healing them, which is accounted in such gospel passages as Luke, which says

"As the sun was setting, all those who had people sick with various diseases brought them to him. He would lay his hands on each one of them and cure them."

By healing outside of the purity system and touching and associating with the impure, Jesus was challenging the purity system which said that ritual purity was a matter of observing ritual, one of the core pillars of strength of the temple, and again advocating compassion and love over ritual purity.

It is clear that the strong link between the social justice movements of today and the message of the Jesus of History is the core value of promoting and practising compassion and care to all humans despite social convention regarding the marginalised portions of society, although there is a link also to the Christ of Faith. The Christ of Faith is based on the idea that Jesus is the son of God, and hence his action reflecting the word of God. The Christ of Faith perpetuates the same ideas as the Jesus of History, but with an added authority derived from his divine origins; he is considered to be the Son of God rather than a normal human being. The fact that the religious church is based on the Christ of Faith also means that it is the Christ of Faith who has perpetuated these teachings of equality and justice through history. Pope John Paul the II has also stated in his encyclical, Redemptor Hominis that Jesus Christ, through the Incarnation, "…in a certain way united himself with each man," hence imbuing every human being with a deep personal dignity, which is one of the key principles of Social Justice.

It is clear that Jesus offers all looking for purpose and meaning in life an authentic spiritual experience. Jesus offers insight into universals principles of compassion and love in terms of the personal sphere in that he preached that all should practise compassion and love to their fellow humans. This offers a path more spiritually fulfilling that the 'me centred' one that many choose to take in this modern society. He also offers a deeper meaning to life in his call for society to rebel against the societal norms that may be causes of injustice and inequality.

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