The Jesus Wars

by Rusty Miller

On April 8 of this year, all three major news magazines hit the newsstands with the same theme, the search for the historical Jesus. This came on the heels of both of Dallas-Ft. Worth's daily newspapers running similar articles on the same subject. "'The Jesus Wars,' says (Oregon St. professor Marcus) Borg, 'are heating

What are the "Jesus Wars?" In 1985, under the leadership of Robert Funk and funded by a group called the Westar Institute, the Jesus Seminar convened to discuss and debate the historical reliability of what we know about Jesus. Most importantly, the seminar was determined to put their views into the hands of a public previously unacquainted with the questions which had been raised by German scholars as much as 150 years ago.

What has come from the seminar in just over 10 years is a determined effort to undermine the story of Jesus as told by the New Testament. While there are many different scholars with many different ideas about Jesus involved in the Jesus Seminar, one of their missions has been to arrive at a "consensus" about what Jesus said and did in His ministry, if they believe He had a ministry at all. This work culminated with the publishing of a book titled The Five Gospels, in which they voted on the accuracy of sayings attributed to Jesus (For more on this procedure, see pages 3 and 6 in this issue).

At this point, we do not believe that the Jesus Seminar is drawing away members of the Lord's church, but we do consider them a very dangerous threat. The ideas they espouse have already penetrated many of the denominational world's seminaries and colleges to the point where many of the graduates of those institutions (who will be the future leaders of their respective bodies) have moved toward a position which, if unchecked, will soon have them denying the deity of Jesus. Unfortunately, what generally happens to them eventually comes to bear on us (for example, see the missionary society movement, the social gospel movement and the unity in diversity movement).

Besides the internal threat, there is the battle for the souls of those who are lost. If the Jesus Seminar succeeds in "converting" the world to their position, it will make it that much more difficult for God to reach them. This is, at heart, a battle for truth against the forces of evil. We must be willing and able to defend what we believe to be the truth of God's word against those who attempt to tear it down.