Why I think Brian Zahnd’s discussion of Jesus, the Church, the Bible, and Christianity is outdated

In a Substack post, Brian Zahnd looks at four key theological “entities” and warns of the “theological mischief” that happens when the “critical distinction” between them is not properly respected. The Church, the Bible, and the religion of Christianity are all good and important things, but not as good and important as Jesus. “The moment we try to nudge the Church or the Bible or Christianity toward equality with Christ we are headed down a theological path that leads to confusion and real-life trouble.”

My objection to this sort of analysis is two-fold. First, it relies on a flawed understanding of the categories if they are meant to be fundamentally biblical and not the product of later theological rationalisation. Secondly, it is an outdated analysis of “Christianity”: it deals with problems of the past, not of the future.

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The Holy Spirit 3: This is my beloved Son
Moving on from John’s assertion that the coming Christ will baptize Israel “with the Holy Spirit and fire”, we come directly to the account of Jesus’ own baptism. As Matthew tells the story, Jesus comes out of the water, the heavens are opened to him, he sees “the Spirit of God descending as… ( | 2 comments)
The Holy Spirit 2: He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire
Why might we be interested in what the New Testament has to say about the Holy Spirit? Probably because we want to know how the church is supposed to function, or how to correct some charismatic excess or other, or how to prove to the cessationists that they have got it wrong. Given those sorts of… ( | 7 comments)
The Holy Spirit 1: Conceived by the Holy Spirit
Under the modern evangelical paradigm there are three main components to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. First, the Spirit is understood to be the third person of the Trinity. Secondly, the Spirit is the agent of personal renewal, the source of new life, the transformative power of the new… ( | 47 comments)
Dogmas, doctrines, opinions, and narratives
Ever since the early Jewish Christian movement first pushed its way into the Greek-Roman world, the church has built its house on what appeared for many centuries to be the immovable and unshakeable sandstone of theology—that is, theology as post-biblical rational discourse, in its multiplicity of… ( | 9 comments)
The breasts of Jesus and some other suspect egalitarian arguments
I am all in favour of a biblical egalitarianism grounded in the conviction that the people of God as new creation does not need to live under the curse of patriarchy. I don’t think that under Christ the man is mandated to rule over the woman or that the woman is relegated to the position of… ( | 9 comments)
The keys to the kingdom of heaven
Jonathan Leeman offers an interpretation of Jesus’ enigmatic statement about the keys of the kingdom (Matt. 16:19) on the 9 Marks Blog. It is excerpted from his book The Church and the Surprising Offense of God’s Love: Reintroducing the Doctrines of Church Membership and Discipline.… ( | 7 comments)
Did Paul believe in an imminent parousia?
Continuing a conversation from elsewhere, I want briefly to address the question of whether Paul taught that there would be a resurrection of the faithful, within the historical horizon of the early churches, comparable to the “first resurrection” of the martyrs in Revelation 20:4-6. It has been… ( | 10 comments)