Jesus Is the Thesis: Meditations on a Christocentric Faith

Introduction

Nearly nine decades old, Polycarp was escorted into the stadium. He was the former bishop of Smyrna, now retired, and had been reported to the authorities as a follower of Christ. An odd ruling from Emperor Trajan forty years earlier brought this situation about. In response to one of his governors asking about these Christians, Trajan ruled that time should not be wasted seeking them out—but if accused and refuse to recant, they were to be punished.

Polycarp was accused. Now it was time to recant.

Several times he was asked to deny Christ and swear by the name of Caesar. Polycarp’s response: Eighty and six years have I served Him, and He never did me any injury; how then can I blaspheme my King and Savior?¹ Polycarp was burned at the stake but not before offering a prayer to God in thanks, for judging him worthy to share in the suffering of Christ.²

To Polycarp, Jesus was not just a historical figure or moral teacher. He was real and present with him. Jesus was the one who gave him life and would reverse his coming death. Not only did Jesus offer him hope for life after his death but a path and purpose for his life before. Jesus was his Savior, but Jesus was also his King—the one he sought to follow, to obey, to have rule over him. For Polycarp’s life, Jesus was the Thesis.

The Apologists

Polycarp was a member of an important era in Christian history. The original followers of Jesus were dying off, and the church was attempting to establish itself as a legitimate religion. They were attacked from all sides—the Roman leaders, the followers of Greek philosophy, and the traditional Jews who didn’t accept this new take on a messiah. Many of the attacks involved simple misunderstandings (i.e., the accusation that Christians were cannibals), but others were deeper and more complex.

Out of this reality came the first apologists. Those like Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Irenaeus, and Origen defended the Christian faith against those who sought to discredit it. They had to correct the misunderstandings, explain what the faith truly was, argue for its truth, and make the case that its truth was good for the lives of all people. Given the persecution of followers of Jesus, the task to establish Christianity as a credible religion was one with concrete and urgent consequences. Justin experienced this when he earned the moniker Martyr by being beheaded under the rule of Marcus Aurelius.³

One can easily see the need for apologetics at that time. The apologists’ lives depended on a good defense of their faith. What about now? We no longer face this kind of persecution,⁴ and we’re certainly not the new kids in town. Many would argue that the time for apologetics, if there ever was one, is long in the past. The world’s largest religion is no longer in need of defense. If anything, given the power it has acquired and the foul ways it has been used, the modern definition of apology is what needs to take place.

Although a strong one, that’s not the only objection to contemporary apologetics. Others point to how apologists ignore the genuine complexity of issues, offering pat answers to difficult questions. Or how apologetics is used to belittle the other side, epitomized in the countless YouTube videos where an apologist destroys atheist arguments. Or how many apologetic methodologies fail to account for modern epistemology.

All of these are good reasons to ignore apologetics altogether. While it may have begun as a helpful way for persecuted Christians to address misunderstandings and establish their faith, it has in many ways become something different—something more sinister. Rather than bringing life to the weak, it has often turned into a weapon for the strong—the strong who are more concerned with winning than finding truth, more concerned with retaining power than living out a sacrificial faith, more concerned with doctrinal purity than the love of God and others.

We write these things while acknowledging that this is a work of apologetics. This is because, while we see the many flaws in the field of apologetics, we believe it still has a place. There are three reasons for this.

1. Apologetics is unavoidable.

We have come to recognize more and more, with the help of philosophers and cognitive scientists, that humans don’t generally assess the reasons for an idea before choosing to accept it. We have a sense of what we believe, then account for the relevant facts based on those beliefs. While Aristotle considered humans the rational animal, we are far more driven by emotion than we think. This fact tosses a wrench into the apologetic system, which assumes that if you give enough reasons for an idea, your opponent can’t help but change their mind. This is especially true when thinking in terms of opponents—of winners and losers. If I’m going to lose by changing my mind, my fight-or-flight instinct will undoubtedly push me to keep that from happening.

Even so, this doesn’t keep us from offering reasons for beliefs. To do that would be impossible, sacrificing an essential part of the human experience and sacrificing truth. We all have beliefs, and we offer reasons for those beliefs. Even those who claim apologetics is pointless or unhelpful offer reasons, or defenses, for their beliefs. At the most basic level, that is apologetics. A search for truth will always involve the offering and assessing of reasons.

Although considering this epistemic reality, we must enter conversations with the knowledge of our emotive life in mind. We need to recognize that people, including ourselves, aren’t in search of reasons alone. We want beauty, good stories; we want to want to believe something. An apologetic that accounts for those realities is not somehow less intellectually rigorous but more so. It’s a kind of rigor that accounts for the whole of human experience, making it more true to our God-given design.

2. Misunderstandings still need to be addressed.

While we are no longer in the early days, misunderstandings of the faith are still rampant—in the world and in the church itself. In the early church, confusion resulted from lack of knowledge. People didn’t know what this faith was about, so rumors spread and needed to be addressed. Today, we have a different problem. Christianity is so ubiquitous, it has seeped into the surrounding culture, causing the lines between Christianity and culture to be blurred. In America, for example, everyone has heard of Christianity, but the Christianity they know of is one intimately associated with American values and particular political ideologies. The difficulty we face today is separating the essence of Christianity from its cultural milieu.

We believe the way of Jesus is not only good but essential for the flourishing of humanity. Because of that, we want to get his message right. That’s not to say we have all the answers or that our way of understanding Jesus is right and everyone else is wrong. It’s simply to say that we care—so taking part in the discussion is essential for all of us to come to a clearer picture of Jesus.

The best way for humans to come to true beliefs is by conversation. We don’t reason well alone.⁵ Apologetics is important because it is the act of engaging in the conversation. It goes wrong when that fact is forgotten, assuming the apologetic work is the debate’s end, rather than the beginning.

3. Apologetics can be done well.

Apologetics doesn’t have to be a hostile, us-versus-them, intellectual ego war. Jesus shows us how. He cares that people believe in him, so he gives them reasons to. He spends time correcting misunderstandings about his kingdom. Ultimately, though, his way of getting to people’s hearts is by giving up his life. He doesn’t seek power; he gives it up. Apologetics can be done well when it keeps its eyes on Jesus and embodies his way of life.

One facet of this self-sacrificial approach is intellectual humility. Confidence in one’s beliefs cannot preclude openness to the experience of others. When it does, that confidence shifts into blind certainty. At blind certainty, one has sacrificed truth on the altar of self. As finite beings, there will always be some new information to which to adjust our worldviews to fit, so a person searching for truth will have to always remain open to receiving it. When apologetics takes this humble approach, it can serve as a way for us to navigate this world of information, joining a community, all working to make the best of the knowledge we have.

A Thesis

If you think back on your middle school English class, you may remember learning about the thesis. The central statement in your paper, the main idea, the thought on which everything else holds together. Without that thesis, they told you, your essay will be aimless, without grounding.

Our argument in this book is that Jesus is the Thesis. He’s the main idea, the one who holds everything together. He is the Thesis of our lives but also so much more. Our goal here is not to answer particular questions or defend against some heresy but to give a positive picture of the Christian faith. It’s an attempt to address misunderstandings by pointing to the person himself, Jesus Christ. We believe that once that person has been encountered, everything else begins to make much more sense. As C. S. Lewis put it, I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.⁶ Jesus is that Sun by which all of life is illuminated.

This work is a collaborative effort, both authors placing their stamp on every page. At the same time, we each take the lead in particular sections, letting our individual styles, and expertise, shine through.

With Jeff at the helm, we lay the foundations broadly, finding Jesus in story and Scripture. In part 1, we look at The True Myth. Borrowing from J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, we assess how the myths humans have told and wished were true are made real in Christ. In addition, we argue that these myths and our human longings point to a universal morality found in the life and teachings of Jesus.

In part 2, we look at Jesus in Every Book. Here, we argue that Jesus is the Thesis of Scripture. We search for him in every book, establish his centrality in all of Scripture, and then explore a particular example of this—from Genesis, the beginning. To make sense of the Bible, it is essential to understand this through line of Christ.

The pen then moves, so to speak, to Joshua’s hand. In part 3, we look at The Thesis Himself. Christians often talk about Christ saving us or dying for our sins. We tease out what that means, as well as what it is missing, placing emphasis not only on Jesus’s death but also on what his life and his resurrection mean for us.

And finally, in part 4, we look at Applying the Thesis. We argue first for a Christocentric ethic, which we then apply to the areas of sexuality and politics. Through this, we hope to show the beauty of a life lived as a follower of Jesus.

We offer this work not as an end to the debate but the start of a conversation. It is our humble attempt to share with the world, with our students, with our friends, the beauty of Jesus Christ our King. He is the Thesis of the faith and, like Polycarp, of our lives.

1

. A. Roberts et al., Encyclical Epistle,

41

.

2

. According to legend, the fire set to burn Polycarp miraculously avoided him, forming a circle around the pyre. When the officials realized they couldn’t burn him, they had an executioner finish the job with a dagger. The blood that then poured out of Polycarp extinguished the flames, a sign reflecting the sacrifice of Christ that extinguishes the fires of hell.

3

. Gonzalez, Early Church to Reformation,

56

. As noted earlier, the empire was not seeking out Christians but would try to execute them if accused. Interestingly, historical theologian Justo L. Gonzalez notes, Justin had recently bested a famous pagan philosopher in a public debate, and there are indications that it was this philosopher who accused him.

4

. This is not to ignore the real persecution that continues to happen in other parts of the world. See CT Editors, "

50

Countries," for an overview as of Jan.

2021

.

5

. See Mercier and Sperber, Enigma of Reason—a helpful treatment on this epistemological dilemma.

6

. Lewis, Weight of Glory,

141

.

Part 1

The True Myth

For light years and geological periods are mere arithmetic until the shadow of man, the poet, the maker of myths, falls upon them.

—C. S. Lewis, MiraclES⁷

Myths and Makers of Myths

The maker of myths? Who is he? He is the One who makes sense of the grandest and truest telling of the story of humanity, by giving it language. He gives context to the geological periods, mathematics, and science that make up the facts of how the story works. In the above quote, Lewis elucidates that through the vehicle of mythical fiction, context and vibrancy are given to the brute facts. He held that in order to give context and life to the facts, one needs imagination, and imagination was in fact given to man by the most creative and imaginative One, God himself . . . the original Poet and Storyteller. For he is the great Storyteller and Myth Maker, and he has used men from time immemorial and in every culture to tell them the true story. The story of his grand, pictorial, and imaginative effort to woo them to himself.

7

. Lewis, Miracles,

52

–

53

.

1

Mythopoeia

⁸

It was J. R. R. Tolkien who first piqued C. S. Lewis’s belief in Christianity by challenging him to consider it as the true myth. Lewis’s affirmative response came about when he (an avowed atheist at the time) and Tolkien were engaging in deep conversations about the power of myths. Lewis, in the heat of their intellectual battle on September 19, 1931, commented that myths were merely lies breathed through silver,⁹ meaning that there was nothing true about them, albeit they were sometimes conveyed in beautiful and eloquent fashion. He would point to the Aeneid,¹⁰ the Epic of Gilgamesh, Balder, Osiris, and other such mythologies and mythological figures as examples. In reaction to this statement, Tolkien went home and penned 148 lines of classic poetry that he entitled Mythopoeia, or myth-maker. Beginning with these now famous words, Philomythus [myth-lover] to Misomythus [myth-hater] aka Mythopoeia, by J. R. R. Tolkien, To one who said that myths were lies and therefore worthless, even though ‘breathed through silver.’¹¹ The poem was instrumental in drawing Lewis toward belief in Christianity as truth. The discovery was so powerful an epiphany that only a month later Lewis would write on October 18, 1931, to his good friend Arthur Greeves:

Now the story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us in the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened: and one must be content to accept it in the same way, remembering that it is God’s