When Jesus Came To Harvard: Making Moral Choices Today

When Jesus Came To Harvard: Making Moral Choices Today

Excerpt. ? Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.When Jesus Came to HarvardMaking Moral Choices TodayBy Harvey Cox Mariner BooksCopyright ? 2006 Harvey CoxAll right reserved.ISBN: 9780618710546Chapter 1He Was Then, We Are NowTwenty centuries - sixty generations - have passed sinceJesus of Nazareth lived. The people who met or heard himthen numbered only in the hundreds, or a few thousand atmost. The Romans did not consider him significant enough torecord his execution in their annals. He wrote no books. No monumentswere erected in his memory. Yet today countless people believethat he has an important moral significance, not just for histime, but for ours as well. Still, they are often perplexed and frustratedabout just what that significance is. Many experts, from TVevangelists to university researchers, claim in self-assured tones tospeak authoritatively about Jesus. But they have so many differentand conflicting interpretations of him, they cannot all be right.One way I tried to close the then/now gap was to introduce thestudents to a number of recent figures for whom Jesus was the principalinspiration. We studied Gandhi, who never became a Christianbut tried to base his life on the Sermon on the Mount. We readabout Martin Luther King, who found in Jesus the model for hisown nonviolence and a racially inclusive community. We talkedabout Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Worker Movement,who tried her best to follow Jesus" pattern of poverty and simplicity.I told the class about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastorwhose determination to follow Jesus in Nazi Germany led him tojoin the conspiracy to assassinate Hitler and who was hanged by theGestapo just hours before the Americans arrived at his concentrationcamp in Flossenburg. Many students chose to write their termpapers on one of these twentieth-century disciples of Jesus. In aworld full of celebrity idols with oversize clay feet, they seemed tobe looking for credible moral heroes. Jesus obviously provided apowerful example of someone who took the side of the dispossessed,spoke truth to power, and was willing to pay the price of hisconvictions.But there was still something missing. Even the most thoughtfulstudents had a hard time finding in Jesus" life and teaching muchconcrete guidance in making the day-to-day decisions they faced.One day a candid junior who was active in the local Lutheranchurch asked me a simple question: "Why does nearly everyone westudy in this course end up getting crucified, shot, or hanged?" Hewas referring to Jesus, Gandhi, King, and Bonhoeffer. But he wasnot being flip. He told me he had no ambition to get rich or famous,and that he was genuinely inspired by Jesus" concern for the outcastpeople of his day. But, he said, he did want to find a satisfying jobsomeday, get married, raise a family, and be a good citizen of hiscommunity and of the world. Naturally, he wanted to do the rightthing. But he did not feel up to confronting the Roman legions.Sometimes the most devout students told me they prayed to Jesusfor guidance about their choices, and I believe they did. But whenthey looked to him as a living example of how to make moral decisions,they were often puzzled. The Sermon on the Mount seemedcompelling to them, and I am sure many would have at least tried to"turn the other cheek," and even to love their enemies. But werethey really supposed to take Jesus" admonition literally, sell everythingthey had, and give it to the homeless people in HarvardSquare? Did I seriously expect them to "take no thought for themorrow," as Jesus taught, when I had assigned term papers andscheduled a final exam? In short, they found Jesus powerfully attractive,but it was hard to make a moral connection with him.It was not just the Christians who found Jesus both appealing andpuzzling. The Jewish students who knew their own religion recognizedhim as a fellow Jew in the tradition of