CAN JESUS BE A BELIEVABLE LIVING CHARACTER IN TODAY’S WORLD?

By Rod Mitchell in All Sorts

Discussing who Jesus is, and how we, as 21st-century people, can have a relationship with this person, and how we might experience the movement of the spirit in a 21st-century context.

CAN JESUS BE A BELIEVABLE LIVING CHARACTER IN TODAY'S WORLD?
I am writing this article before the event I wish to write about - always a risky venture. Maybe what I end up saying in this article will bear no resemblance to what has taken place on Saturday the Feb 11th! But, let me try and describe the event and its intentions before it has taken place.
On Saturday approximately 14 people, will meet to explore two significant issues in the life of the church. The first issue is associated with who Jesus is, and how we, as 21st-century people, can have a relationship with this person. I'm calling this first exploration 'oasis one'; here we plan to explore the life of Jesus as a teacher. It is hoped that in the future 'oasis two' we will explore Jesus as a prophet; 'oasis three' will explore Jesus as a healer; the final 'oasis four' will examine Jesus as a spirit person.
The second significant issue for the life of the church, is about how we might experience the movement of the spirit in a 21st-century context. And it may be there is a relationship between these two specific questions, about Jesus and the Spirit. Clearly, Father Roger Haight, a wonderful Jesuit theologian, argues that the modern church needs to recover both a quality relationship with Jesus and have the skills and openness to experience the evolutionary movement of the spirit in our modern Western society. In this new dynamic evolutionary world that is being presented to us, many have wondered what impact this might have on our spiritual experiences and understandings. Let me express a sharp contrast. In the not too distant past, the created world was regarded as a given: God created and it was good. This led to spirituality being about how we as humans lived within the given fact.

Now however since we have discovered that the created world is continuing to unfold, we as human beings have to ask some new questions. For example, how do we participate in this unfolding process and do we have a significant role to play? And how do we connect to this 'spirit in action' which we come to know through evolution?
I need to declare that this particular workshop has a significant experimental component to it. Not only is it exploring a relationship with Jesus and the spirit, but it is seeking to do this in light of the fact that both Jesus and the spirit are considered to be two sources, which are foundational to the beginning of the church. So if Jesus and the spirit set the church in motion, then maybe reconnecting with these two source foundations of the church could be a fruitful place to begin seeking a solution to the present and future dynamics of a vibrant Christian community.
I believe that we stand at a unique moment in the history of the world when creative options are available to humankind in ways that have not been available in the past. New knowledge in all fields of exploration has become available. Within the last hundred years, an explosion of knowledge about the functioning of the human brain, the knowledge that simply was not available to earlier generations, is now available. People like Freud and Jung have given a new richness to our understanding of consciousness. Imaginative symbolic language and the interpretation of dreams are only two areas that have benefited from this new exploration of consciousness.
My hope is that if this workshop gets anywhere near achieving some of the intentions expressed above it can be a workshop that we as
Methodists can take further afield.
Rod Mitchell