The Radical Christian #3

Question Authority

Starting in the 1960’s counter-cultural movements, “question authority” was an early meme, embodying a philosophy which challenged society’s normative rules. It has roots in the Socratic tradition, but has always been controversial. Critics say it fosters extreme individualism and anarchy. Followers say it’s a healthy approach to life. With the onset of the Age of Trump, it may be experiencing a renewal of relevance.

One of the most distinguishing hallmarks of the radical Christian is the questioning, indeed challenging, even confronting of authority. Radical Christians are rooted in Jesus of Nazareth, who spent his whole ministry questioning authority. Radical Christians constantly seek Jesus’ roots, the unadorned and essential truths which he taught and lived. These truths are so cross-integrated that, taken together, they comprise the God which we worship and our expectancy of the Kin-dom of God on Earth.

Challenging the assumptions of the present order is a powerful means of confronting authority. Not only did Jesus know this well, he was very creative in his approach. His well-known “you have heard it said” statements are illustrative. Placed by Matthew just after the Beatitudes near the beginning of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, these narratives call on his fellow Jews to go beyond Mosaic law while still affirming it. He takes on the “Ten Commandments” and other elements of “the law,” which were the given parameters of Jewish life in his day. At one time, he both “fulfills” the law and calls on Jews to exceed it!

First, “you have heard it said” seems to deconstruct the law; then “but I say to you” tells the people that God expects even more. Instead of avoiding murder, what God really means is that you can’t be angry with anyone. Even looking at someone lustfully is morally wrong, not just the committing of adultery. And so on with divorce, oaths, retaliation, love, charity, prayer, and more. Jesus widens and deepens the law, and yet affirms it!

What’s more, he ever-so-subtly puts down the authorities. “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” At first, this seems as though Jesus is setting a high bar for Jewish piety and religious life. But, we know that he has a really low opinion of scribes and Pharisees, both as religious and secular leaders, as Roman collaborators, hypocrites, and worse. Matthew devotes his entire 23rd chapter to Jesus condemning them (e.g., “woe to you, scribes and Pharisees”). They are not so high and mighty after all, and Jesus calls them down.

Not exactly a way to make friends with the establishment; no wonder they went after him! And in all of this, Jesus shows us what questioning and confronting authority looks like: a moral message couched in accessible terms and backed up by physical presence and action which will inevitably lead to vengeful sanctions by the establishment. It does not take place in the sanctuary, but out in the open with the people. This is the example of confronting authority taken seriously by radical Christians.

Such “zeal for the Lord” leads Reza Aslan, the Islamic scholar, to conclude his book with the following assessment of Jesus: “Jesus of Nazareth -- Jesus the man -- is every bit as compelling, charismatic, and praiseworthy as Jesus the Christ. He is, in short, someone worth believing in.” To which the radical Christian adds “Amen and Ammin and Amen.”