The Victim Mechanism

Reading Rene Girard, or the Girardian theology of James Alison, is a converting experience. Girard sees the many against the (innocent) victim as the beginning of everything we take for granted as peculiarly human. Culture, religion, language, community, even the formation of the self and self-consciousness. At the beginning of the emergence of the (recognizably) human the violence amongst us from competition was resolved by pointing the finger in blame at an individual. They are the cause of the conflict (this is the lie of the lynchers); expelling or killing that individual will bring peace. And so it did, and still does. Humankind hid from the truth of our persecution of the innocent victim, but the mechanism did bring peace, at least of a sort. We still hide from the lie. All human culture, every individual's sense of self, is predated by our relationship to the innocent victim. There is no way around this primordial murder and its justifying lie. Religion does not escape. Religion arose, according to Girard, as a direct result of the peace brought through the death of the victim. The god(s) owned/accepted the victim, and sometimes the victim would take on royal and divine epithets.

This means that the victim mechanism, with its lie, is embedded in our societies, philosophies, politics, religions, etc. We are born into the lie because the lie is at the beginning of our culture. We are born into the lie because it is the cause of our caregivers self-consciousness. There is no 'self' that can step aside from the victim mechanism and correct the distortion. Original Sin takes on a new meaning in the light of Girard. There is no possibility of a Pelagian self-salvation by trying harder to separate ourselves from the lie within us. The lie is foundational to who we are. Salvation can only come from outside us, from the victim.

Hanging Together In Communion

James Tengatenga, Chair of Standing Committee

"A proposal from Dato' Stanley Isaacs that The Episcopal Church be separated from the Communion led to a discussion in which Committee members acknowledged the anxieties felt in parts of the Communion about sexuality issues. Nevertheless, the overwhelming opinion was that separation would inhibit dialogue on this and other issues among Communion Provinces, dioceses and individuals and would therefore be unhelpful. The proposal was not passed..." (Standing Committee, Anglican Consultative Council)

 Good for the Standing Committee. If individuals, parishes, dioceses, or provinces wish to separate themselves from the Episcopal Church of the USA (ECUSA) then they can stay away from ECUSA. The rest of us can stay connected. I don't want to separate from them; I quite like them. I visited USA in the late 90s, and was welcomed by the Diocese of Nevada. Just like any normal part of the Anglican Church they had a great deal of diversity of opinion on all sorts of issues. That's one reason why I like ECUSA : just like the US itself, despite its problems, ECUSA is diverse with interesting people and ideas.

Of course, it raises the question of what a formal separation would amount to in any event. It has been suggested that if ECUSA and the rest of us were formally separated ECUSA wouldn't be welcome at formal Anglican events around the globe. I imagine some ECUSANS who like the travel opportunities of the world-wide Anglican gravy-train may lament its end, but the other 99.9% of ECUSANS would get on with the business of being the Church, and that would include their international connections and work with those who are open to collaboration. Communion is a gift of the Spirit, and like all things of the Spirit is discerned not through human fiat, words or feelings, but by its fruit. People can separate themselves and break communion with others, but for those who wish to honour the Spirit's bonds of unity, we cannot be forced to give up the gift of communion. The Spirit will find a way to go around the barriers erected by some.

John Dickson's, Jesus A Short Life

BOOK REVIEW :  Jesus : A Short Life, by John Dickson. 2008. A Lion Book, imprint of Lion Hudson, Wilkinson House, Jordan Hill Road, Oxford UK

Reviewed by Joan Durdin.

In recent years several popular books have made extravagant claims about the life of Jesus – often within the text of an otherwise ‘secular’ story. An example is The Da Vinci Code by novelist Dan Brown. It was widely read and made into a blockbuster film. John Dickson is critical of any books, whether by novelists, theologians or skeptics, presenting aspects of the life of Jesus that cannot stand the test of historical method.

 

Dickson is an Honorary Associate in the Department of Ancient History, Macquarie University, Sydney. He claims that his book is not primarily a work of scholarship. He intended it to be an accessible and reliable re-presentation of what the leading historical experts say about Jesus. He has chosen to explore only what historical method can discover, and what the majority of scholars accept as probable. His sources are the gospels, parts of the epistles, and the writings of accepted historians in the years between 50 and 100 AD.

The chapters begin with ‘Vital Statistics’: When and where was Jesus born? Where did he grow up? And what do we know of his family and trade? What do we know of his ministry, his teaching, his last days? The content of chapters are indicated in their headings – ‘Mentor and competitors’; ‘Kingdom of Judgement and Love’ (the subject of one of Warren’s recent sermons); ‘Strange Circle of Friends’; Miracles, History and the Kingdom’; ‘Contra Jerusalem’; ‘Last Supper’; ‘Crucifixion’ and ‘Resurrection’.

I found this book easy to read. The author avoids academic language, and occasionally lightens the content with contemporary allusions. For example, ‘the historical Jesus proclaimed God’s coming judgement in a way that would give any modern fire and brimstone preacher a run for his money’ (p, 59) . On the question of the financial cost of Jesus’ three-year ministry in Palestine, he noted that some of the women among Jesus’ followers supported him out of their own means (Luke 8: 1-3), ‘not like modern missionary supporters who send money, by electronic transfer, from the comfort of their homes!’ (p 75)

Here and there throughout the text important points are highlighted in the margin, providing a summary of the content of each chapter. There are also copious illustrations in colour, which draw our attention to some of the sources which the author used, some of the works of art which add to our appreciation of the words of the gospels, and scenes in and near the modern Jerusalem which reveal details of its antiquity.

As one who enjoys reading both history and biography, I found Dickson’s book a lucid, engaging account of the life of Jesus, an account which confirms my Christian belief. I think that it could be used to advantage as the subject of group discussion. Participants could share their own questions and comments, and hopefully advance their own grasp of the essentials of Christian belief that come from a study of the life of Jesus. 

Yes, But ...

Last week I quoted from Diana L. Hayes. it was a good quote (see here), quoting in turn, and in approval, St Augustine about our need for God. In the same small article - written like a manifesto for a new spirituality - she says that churches, synagogues and any of the other traditional forms of institutional religion are not answering the deepest yearnings of people anymore. "Perhaps this is so because these institutions have become so involved in naming and thereby controlling the Spirit that they no longer have it within their midst... They have lost that which they sought and claimed to own and have become 'whitened sepulchers' devoid of life, of knowledge, of hope, of the spirit." (p. 54)  Seems a bit extreme, but it is written as rhetoric, so a bit of exaggeration is mandatory. Would the traditional religion she mentions be like that practiced by St Augustine himself? Presumably. Yes, of course, churches and church people can think that God is theirs, thereby making God into an idol. It is a common human failing, even when the god owned is the more common idol of wealth, power, family, longevity, security, etc. And I think it was Jesus who used the" whitened sepulchers bit", and he was most definitely traditional. (Unless, of course, you think nothing good can come from Israel, and therefore agree with the "Jesus went to India ..." antisemitism.) It seems quite a common practice for contemporary 'spirituality' to take from traditional religion its great insights and truths, cut the truths away from all the practices, beliefs and history that produced those truths, and then claim that, somehow, you know the truth better and can get there from some other route. Call me a skeptic, but it just doesn't hold water. Bonhoeffer, with his hint about a religionless Christianity, is used in a similar way. But Bonhoeffer was traditional. And the great figures who stood for justice and peace, favourites of the non-traditional movements, were traditional Christians. Think of Romero, or Dorothy Day. And then there is the deep spirituality of the mystics like Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, and Brother Laurence, not to mention Francis of Assisi, and so many others that are beloved of new age religion, but flap around like fish out of water in it. The traditional faith and its traditional practices produced the mentioned greats. A strict, traditional sacramental and prayer life, with traditional ethics, theology and Scripture reading grounded the great mystics. Yes, the traditional church fails to be anywhere near perfect, but it has always thrown up the greats like Augustine and Teresa, as well as the ordinary, traditional Christians who do so much good in the world despite their failings, and who will always, it seems, be a disappointment to the new age.

Diana L. Hayes, "Who do You, God, Say That We Are?", in Mary Hembrow Snyder, ed. Spiritual Questions for the Twenty First Century, pp. 53-56.

Desire for God

If you have been following the comments on expectation and desire between Cecil and I (here), then check this out from Laurence Freeman. Here is an excerpt:

The certainty of the fundamentalist must be sacrificed and radical doubt must be allowed to question us all. Our experience with the death of certainty is also the death of desire—the egotistical desire to be right, to be safe, to be better than others. Such death is our sharing in the cross. The rebirth of desire that follows is the transformed desire that springs from a pure heart in the vision of God. This “desire for God” is not like any other desire we have known. Yet “happy is the person whose desire for God has become like a lover’s passion for his beloved,” St John Climacus declared. It does not exhaust itself or lead us to exploit others in order to fulfill it. It is both desire and freedom from desire as it was experienced before. [. . . . ]

Restless Hearts (Quote)

'Our hearts are restless until they rest in thee, O Lord.' Surely, St. Augustine spoke the truth. For he too knew that lust and greed could consume one's very existence, filling one's life with supposedly all that one could wish for but somehow still leaving an echoing, gnawing emptiness within the core of one's being. This emptiness is our hunger for God, for someone or something greater than ourselves, who transcends our everyday world and carries us beyond that world, enabling us to have hope. (Diana L. Hayes)

Meditation (Quote)

Meditation is . . . about stillness. It is like the stillness of a pool of water. The distractions that we have when we begin to meditate are only ripples and currents and eddies that disturb the water. But as you begin to meditate, and stillness comes over you, the depth of the water becomes clearer and clearer in the stillness. The experience of meditation, the experience to which each of us is summoned and of which all of us are capable, is to discover that depth within us which is like a deep pool of water, water of an infinite depth. (John Main)

It's About God Not Us

When Abraham barters for the lives of the inhabitants of Sodom through the presence of a few righteous individuals, he does so not because of a sense of his personal standing in God's eyes, and it is not because prayer (if you have enough faith) always 'works'. Abraham does this because of the God with whom he is speaking. It is about God, not Abraham. Interecessory prayer is like this before it is anything else. It is not grounded in our fullness or standing. The very fact we are asking tells us of our need and incompleteness. We ask God.

Temptation (Quote)

"The greatest human temptation is to settle for too little." Thomas Merton.

Avoiding the Call of Jesus

For those who complain about missionary Christianity's claims vis-a-vis other relgions see this. Here is the crunch.

 "What is thus stated in the form of a general rejection of all particularity in favor of a vision of universal validity is, when more deeply seen, more particular and more negative; namely, a specific pattern of avoidance of the particular claims of Christian loyalty in its continuing risk and uncertainty."

Sinners

The two fundamental affirmations of Christianity are that God is good, and that we are sinners. The two go together. It is tempting, however, to split them. Most people seem to quite like the first; even those who don't believe in God! It is the second that causes all the trouble. Some people don't know how to make it an affirmation; they only hear it as destructive and over time can't stop it demolishing their carefully constructed sense of self. Others embrace the appellation of 'sinner' because it fits their low sense of self. Just another way to flagellate themselves.

We can hide from the harshness of the designation 'sinner' by looking at 'sin' and 'sinner' as forensic terms, with the simple meaning that we fail. 'Sinner' becomes a bare fact, rather than saying something about our identity as human beings. As a purely forensic term it remains external to who we are. However, a more nuanced and deeper exploration of our failure makes us realise that everything we do is tainted: we are sinners, not just occasionally falling into sin. And this is when it start to gets harder and people are tempted to recoil from 'sinner' altogether. This rejection of 'sinner' is completely understandable if our sense of self is dependent on us creating our sense of worth, through a kind of moral standing. (I'm a good person, I'm worthwhile, etc.) The 'self-made man' remains in control, separate and ultimately alone. But must at all costs avoid anything that can tear down the self-creation. (Good people can occasionally sin, but they remain essentially good, i.e. I am good.))

The alternative is offered by the gospel. God loves us. God comes to us when we are sinners to show not only that we don't have to create ourselves, but also that we can gain our true identity in that relationship of love.  Or to put it another way, when we are at our weakest God comes to us in an act of utter grace to show that we don't need to earn God's love. In Christ God's love is given freely and lavishly. And although grasping onto our self-creation will only hinder the full realisation of that love and our true identity in it, our self-creation can't prevent the generous showering of love that God gives to us. It can make us lovers of God and others. (Luke 7:47)

And we can go further than this. God's gracious act in Christ shows us that our self-creation remains irrelevant to receiving God's love. Grace is not a stepping stone to a spot where we can take over ourselves, eventually creating a self that doesn't need God entirely and utterly. We don't at some point take over from God's grace and do it ourselves and thereby eventually earn a grudging acceptance from God. Our identity is always to be found in God's gracious action in Christ.

Moralists are suspicious of the bold statement that our moral standing is irrelevant to receiving God's love. They are worried that grace then becomes cheap. St Paul's critics thought the same. Whatever you do with the call to holiness it should never be at the expense of our utter dependence on God's love irrespective of any self-created personhood or moral standing. On the other hand, St Paul did not preach cheap grace, and for all those who accept the pure gratuity of God's love an annual reading of Bonhoeffer on costly grace is a necessity. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, pp. 35-47.) Grace is not to be universalised as a principle that is everywhere present and automatically available apart from God's free act in Christ. This is the error of liberal Christianity: moving from God's love in Christ freely given and without reserve to a necessary principle universally available, conceived almost as a right. Cheap grace in other words.

Would Jesus Go to Church?

Once a month we hold an event at Holy Innocents named QT (Question Time). The event is exactly that: speakers, questions from the audience, great live music, wine from Belair Fine Wines, and delicious snacks from Foods From the Edge. Last night the question was whether God/Jesus/you/me/anybody would/should come to church? I was the speaker for the affirmative, and not just the affirmative, but that if Jesus were going to go to church (rather than synagogue) he would go to a traditional church. I made three broad points:

First, many people find church such a disappointment. We love to point the finger or regale a good conspiracy story about the church, the Vatican, bishops, priest, monks and nuns, or the generally hypocritical group of human beings known as church-going Christians. Well, I think the church is a disappointment. We are sinners. (See here for more on this point.)  But remember, Jesus quite liked sinners. When the church forgets it is a company of sinners, Jesus would disapprove. But sinners who seem to be getting it wrong and know it? He'd hang around with us.  What is the alternative anyway? Are those who say they don't come to church because the people who go to church aren't perfect saying that they would come if we were perfect? (Like them?) If you are one of those then I am glad we aren't perfect because you'd be a bigger pain in the arse than we are already.

Furthermore, a number of years ago I suddenly realised that my disappointment in the church's failure was really just a projection of my own disappointment in my own failure. The realisation came through a hard lesson, but the lesson is simply that I'm not the messiah, the church is not the messiah, and Jesus is the messiah. Get over it people.

My second point was that many people protest against the institutionalization of Jesus and his gospel in the church. When we separate out my first point above from this protest there isn't much left except a bit of contemporary institution-bashing. The truth is that without the institution there would be no memory of Jesus left after all this time. No means for the eyewitness accounts to be carried faithfully through the generations. It would have all been lost. A dangerous memory needs an institution. The problem is not the institution as such. The problem is when the institution prevents people from seeing the gospel. The mismatch between institution and gospel is the problem. (Although remember the point about failure I made above.)

My third and final point picked up what I think is perhaps the most common complaint about church: church is boring. Indeed the local baptist church advertises with the catchy, "Do you find church boring?" The idea is that they aren't I think. Well, there are greater sins for a church than being boring. Superficiality is the greater danger, I think. Indeed, following James Alison, I think the liturgy has hit the mark when it feels a little anti-climactic. Alison contrasts what he styles 'Nuremberg' worship (Nuremberg was a preferred site of the Nazis for their mass rallies/liturgies) with 'un-Nuremberg' worship. Nuremberg worship, through building up a sense of victimization, righteous anger and the formal identification of the 'sinners' leads to the great climax of the appearance of the messiah who will save the people. Alison contrasts this with the climax of Christian worship (particularly traditional Eucharist) with the appearance of the true messiah who is 'just there', having already achieved all there is to achieve. No mass hysteria, no invitation to the congregation to feel victimised, rather the congregation knows itself to be forgiven by the victim. No need to whip the crowd into a frenzy. An anti-climax really. This fits nicely with the thesis of James K. A. Smith in his Desiring the Kingdom, where he points out that worship is all about reorienting our desire to God. The reorientation is for our benefit, redirecting our love away from the idols of our times. And worship that shifts our gaze from the shopping plaza, the AFL/Olympics/World Cup theatrics, internet games, etc., will necessarily appear boring. Otherwise it becomes the religious version of bread and circuses. Boring is good. Jesus would approve, and come to church because it is boring. It's meant to be. (At times at least.)

Sex 'Industry'

This is good from Stephen (that's him in the picture) on the so-called sex 'industry'.

Life is a Gift (Quote)

"...we don’t get to make our lives up. We get to receive our lives as gifts. The story that says we should have no story except the story we chose ... is a lie. To be human is to learn that we don’t get to make up our lives because we’re creatures ... Christian discipleship is about learning to receive our lives as gifts without regret.” (Stanley Hauerwas)

Bless Me Father (Joke)

Bless me Father, for I have sinned. 
I have been with a loose girl'.

The priest asks, 'Is that you, little Joey Pagano ?'

'Yes, Father, it is.' 

'And who was the girl you were with?'

'I can't tell you, Father. I don't want to ruin her reputation'.

"Well, Joey, I'm sure to find out her name sooner or later 
so you may as well tell me now. Was it Tina Minetti?'

'I cannot say..'

'Was it Teresa Mazzarelli?'

'I'll never tell.'

'Was it Nina Capelli?'

'I'm sorry, but I cannot name her.'

'Was it Cathy Piriano?'

'My lips are sealed.'

'Was it Rosa DiAngelo, then?'

'Please, Father, I cannot tell you.' 

The priest sighs in frustration.
'You're very tight lipped, and I admire that.
But you've sinned and have to atone. 
You cannot be an altar boy now for 4 months. 
Now you go and behave yourself.' 

Joey walks back to his pew, 
and his friend Franco slides over and whispers, 
'What'd you get?'

'Four months vacation and five good leads.'

Evil and Suffering

There is no neat explanation for the apparent contradiction of a God of love and a world of suffering and evil.  And it wouldn't make much difference anyway.The Bible tries a couple of times to present a cause, but it is not the comprehensive answer some look for that magically solves the contradiction. Instead the Bible is more interested in the future metamorphosis of the present rather than explaining the past cause of our present suffering. Christianity affirms that God is creator of all that is and will bring it to its final conclusion. All shall be well. Eventually. It is the gap between our present experience and that future that makes us cry out in lament and fury now. The lament expresses not just our grief,disappointment, rage and confusion, but also expresses our desire for the kingdom to come now. "If the kingdom were here now, this wouldn't have happened. Marana tha, Come Lord Jesus!" It is this desire for the kingdom which is important to remember in intercessory prayer. We ask legitimate questions about the point of intercessory prayer, but intercessory prayer is an expression of our desire for the kingdom to come now in some place or in someone's life.

Hard To Spread Gospel?

Traditional congregations complain that it is difficult to spread the good news. Well, yes, of course. The good news is countercultural and requires both dying and living simultaneously. Traditional congregations might also complain that it is difficult to know what to say and when. And that is very different from the first complaint. The first complaint is true and necessarily so. And I find that if I keep the gospel countercultural it is easier to know what to say and when because of the gap between gospel and the world. The less the gospel, or my living of it, is countercultural the more difficult it is to talk about it in a way that is engaging and more than platitudinous. If my life is no different to the world around, what is there to say? Some affirmation, but that soon becomes a little tired on its own. This might also give us a clue as to why the religious right focus on personal issues like sex. It is an easy target and saves having to ask harder questions about our acceptance of the world's ways over the gospel.

Pius XII and the Nazis

Here is something interesting from Walter Kasper. This extract (below) provides information I was unaware of and casts a different light on the usual readings of the Pius XII's relationship to the Nazis.

"Pius XII was Pope (1938–58) during one of the most difficult times of the papacy during the Second World War while Rome was under the heel of Mussolini and later occupied by Germany. The contemporary assessment of his Pontificate during the Second World War was rather positive. In his Christmas radio message of 1942 the Pope was very clear and the Nazis understood very well what he wanted to say. The New York Times, which is not known as a church–oriented newspaper, had already in 1941 published an editorial where it spoke of the Pope as the only voice in the silence and in the dark with the courage to raise his voice. After the deportation of more than 1000 Jews from Rome (only 15 survived) in October 1943 he ordered a general Church asylum in all convents and ecclesiastical houses, including the Vatican and Castel Gandolfo. According to authoritative estimates, about 4500 Jews were hidden.

After the death of the Pope the then minister for foreign affairs and then Prime Minister of the State of Israel Golda Meir thanked the Pope with warm words for what he had done in dark times for the Jewish people. In a similar way, the then Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem Herzog also praised the Pope for what he did. These are only some witnesses of high–ranking and well–informed persons who were well aware of what had happened, and who can be called witnesses of the time.

With Hochhut’s fictional play The Deputy (1963) the perception changed radically. Since then the reproach of silence about the extermination of the Jews has become widely spread. Hochhut was not an historian and today there is evidence that he was dependent on communist sources.2 One of the first to defend Pius XII was Joseph Lichten, a Polish Jewish diplomat who later, as director of the International Affairs Department of the Anti–Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, played a distinguished role in interfaith–dialogue. The serious recent historical research is differentiated. There are still today Jews who defend Pius XII, and on the other side there are Catholic authors who are critical about his attitude. So there is no clear frontline between Jews and Catholics,5 though the majority of Jews, especially in Israel, are still critical. Whether this is partly due to a lack of information about more recent historical research work, I would like to leave open."

Worship Without Expectations

 Following on from a previous post, worship without expectations is a good thing. It hollows out space in our hearts free from our own self-centredness ready for the living God. it is easy to see expectations regarding God and spirituality at work in contemporary Australia. Although church-hopping until the hopper finds the church they like has made churches more honest as they cannot assume people's allegience, overall it is unhelpful in the spiritual journey. Supermarket spirituality encourages people to think they know how God wishes to be gracious to them and so they search until they find it. This assumption might be hidden behind the search for uplifting music or a gospel minister, but it still assumes the person concerned knows what God wants for them.

Contrary to this, I don't think we really know what God wants for us, and how much goodness God wishes to shower upon us, and the sheer weight of goodness we miss because we have tunnel vision: we only receive the goodness that our expectations allow. Breaking our addiction to ourselves by not coming to worship with expectations of what God should do and how God should achieve it can be painful. People confuse this spiritual correction going on within us as boredom, or poor preaching, or bad liturgy, etc.

Another example of this is when people stay at a church because they are receiving what they want. If you think about it, it is just the other side of the coin of people leaving because they don't get what they want. Coming to church without expectations of how and what God should do broadens our experience of God, and our hopefulness. Sitting in church when you don't particularly feel God's presence is good practice for those times when God seems particularly absent. Feeling like God is absent at church will also give us a new sense of how shocking the crucifixion of Jesus must have been for the first disciples, not to mention a new sympathy for Jesus hanging on the cross is desolation. We are in good company! And if you are sitting in church and you wonder where God is in all of this, well focus on the Eucharist: it proclaims the death and resurrection of the Lord until he comes. Talk about presence in absence. And the next time we find ourselves nailed to the cross, there will be some formed practice to fall back on.

The Gospel of Thomas and the Historical Reliability of the Gospels IV

Follow this link for some recent discussion about the Gospel of Thomas. Just reading the post without following the other links gives you the basic idea. The Gospel of Thomas is viewed by many as later and less reliable than the canonical Gospels for researching the historical Jesus because

• of its anti-Jewish flavour
• with sayings that appear to be disconnected from a legitimate context
• and reflects a more pagan individualism than a Jewish-Christian sense of bodily community

Jesus was a Jew, most of the first disciples were Jews, and they weren't idiots so it is difficult to understand how such an anti-Jewish, ahistorical (contextless) set of sayings should be considered early in composition. While different contexts in the canonical Gospels for the same saying of Jesus requires an explanation, the first one that comes to mind is not that the disciples blatantly decided to cut Jesus, his life, sayings and actions free from the Jewish context of which he was part and make him an opponent of the Jews. Seems a bit far-fetched. Moreover, why would the disciples think that they should blatantly cut the words and actions of Jesus away from the actual situation in which his words and actions arose? Better to assume they didn't, especially given the evidence in the canonical Gospels that context seemed to be important in the telling of the story of Jesus.

And then add this to the Jesus of the Gospel of Thomas appearing like some pagan sage with his monistic teaching for individual souls, and it is hard to believe that Thomas is early. This doesn't mean it is of no use, just that it is more useful in telling us something about the second century situation out of which it arose rather than a more direct route to Jesus.Reminds me of the Jesus Seminar's love for the sage Jesus who, according to them, only makes epigrammatic, pithy statements that are countercultural and surprising. Handy assumption if you want to cut away most of the canonical Gospels and make Jesus an ahistorical freak floating around the first century but never engaging in the language forms and disputes of the day. (For example, Jesus seminar types seem to hate the idea that Jesus taught and prophesied in apocalyptic, so, given apocalyptic was the usual thought form of the day, they then assume Jesus wouldn't have used it! See here for an extended criticism of the Jesus Seminar's methods from NT Wright.)