Why I think Brian Zahnd’s discussion of Jesus, the Church, the Bible, and Christianity is outdated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 Secondly, it is an outdated analysis of “Christianity”: it deals with problems of the past, not of the future.

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How the light of the modern gospel distorts scripture
It is essential for the integrity, credibility and mission of the church that we read the Bible well. Modern evangelicalism has preserved a particular theological outcome, a thesis, from scripture—the argument that God became incarnate in Jesus for the purpose of dying for the sins of the whole… ( | 7 comments)
More on the salvation of Israel and the response of the nations
I argued in the recent posts on Luke’s Christmas stories and on Paul’s description of Jesus as a “servant of circumcision” that a central plot-line in the New Testament narrative is that God saves Israel through Jesus and the Gentiles respond to this, in the first place, by praising the… ( | 7 comments)
A presumptuous appeal to both emergents and Reformed
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Christ became a servant of circumcision
What we are faced with here is a basic dilemma regarding the structure of the story about salvation in Jesus. On the one hand, we have a conventional view, according to which Jesus is sent into the world in order to save humanity from its sins. On the other, we have the argument that Jesus “came”… ( | 9 comments)
Where’s the “wrath” in the announcement to Zechariah?
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The true meaning of Luke’s Christmas, part 6
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The true meaning of Luke’s Christmas, part 5
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