15 th December: 3 rd in Advent

Messianic Cognitive Dissonance

Do Christians tend to picture Jesus as they would like to see him? Do liberal Christians see Jesus as primarily concerned with the plight of the poor and welcoming the stranger? Do conservative Christians see him as primarily concerned with family values?

A recent study by Lee Ross suggests they do. ⁴ I suppose this isn’t all that surprising. But Ross’ study is interesting because it provides some empirical basis for this insight, and it also offers an explanation for why this is so. In a large scale study of Christians in America, Ross and his colleagues surveyed people on two sets of issues: what they call “fellowship issues,” in particular raising taxes on the rich to ease the plight of the poor and easing the ability of illegal immigrants to become citizens, and “morality issues,” in particular, opposition to gay marriage and abortion. The results show that liberal Christians see Jesus as even more liberal than themselves on fellowship issues, and conservative Christians see Jesus as even more conservative than themselves on morality issues. While liberal Christians acknowledge that their views on gay marriage and abortion are more liberal than those they attribute to Jesus, they don’t think these issues would really be all that important to Jesus. Likewise, conservative Christians acknowledge that their views on taxation and immigration reform are more conservative than those they attribute to Jesus, but they don’t think these would be of real concern for Jesus. The upshot is that liberal Christians picture a liberal Jesus and conservative Christians picture a conservative Jesus.

Ross and his colleagues claim that the reason why Christians tend to project their own views onto Jesus is “dissonance reduction.” The idea here is that people experience “cognitive dissonance” or discomfort (frustration, anger, and anxiety) when they simultaneously hold conflicting ideas, beliefs, and values. In order to reduce the discomfort of this cognitive dissonance, people tend to downplay the importance of one of the discordant factors or even change their perception of one of the discordant factors. In their survey of present day Christians in America, the discordant factor that gets adjusted for both liberal and conservative Christians is the Jesus we meet in the gospels.

In our gospel lesson for today, John the Baptist may be experiencing a case of “messianic cognitive dissonance.” John is in prison (at Herod’s fortified palace in Machaerus according to Josephus (Ant. 18:116-19)), and he gets news of what “the Messiah” was doing. From the context of the passage, it is clear that “the Messiah” refers to Jesus, but the reports of what he has been up to must have been somewhat puzzling to John. He sends his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” John’s confidence in Jesus as the Messiah seems to have wavered a bit since the time of his baptism, when John said to Jesus, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” (Matt 3:14). Even though John has been in prison for a while, he has been getting updates on what Jesus was doing. In light of this information, it seems as though John is no longer so sure Jesus is the one.

John’s messianic cognitive dissonance is due to the tension between his beliefs about what the Messiah should be doing, on the one hand, and the reports he is getting about what Jesus has actually been doing, on the other. When Jesus was baptized, John described the one who was to come as someone who would baptize “with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire” (Matt 3:11-12). John’s view of the Messiah is dark and threatening. An imminent fiery judgment looms for every Israelite. “Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees,” (Matt 3:10) says John, echoing prophetic images from Isaiah (10:33-34) and Jeremiah (11:19). At the last judgment, a stream of fire will come forth from God to consume the wicked (Ps 50:3; 97:3). With winnowing fork in hand, the Messiah will separate the wheat from the chaff (Isa 41:14-16). For those who repent and who are baptized by John there may be some hope; for all others there awaits the Messiah with his winnowing fork and fire. The problem is that John has been receiving reports about Jesus’ deeds, and, so far, there has been no fire and no winnowing! Jesus’ activities seem to have more to do with healing and mercy than with judgment. Which is fine and dandy, as far as it goes, but John wouldn’t exactly call it messianic. Maybe he was a bit hasty in his identification of Jesus as the one who was to come. Maybe Jesus isn’t the Messiah after all. Better to double-check the reports by going straight to Jesus and ask directly, “Are you the one to come, or should we wait for another?” In Herod’s prison, John awaits a word from Jesus that will resolve his messianic cognitive dissonance.

I don’t know if Jesus’ words helped reduce John’s dissonance. We aren’t told. They may have actually made matters worse. Jesus says, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them” (Matt 11:4-5). This is a pretty good summary of what Jesus had been up to in Matthew’s Gospel: he heals a blind man in 9:27-31; he cures a lame man in 9:1-8; he cleanses a leper in 8:1-4; a deaf man regains his hearing in 9:32-34; a man is raised in 9:18-26; and the poor receive good news in 5:3. It also resonates with the prophetic promises of Isaiah who spoke of the coming of the Lord as a time of healing and mercy: the blind will see, the lame will walk, the deaf will hear (Isa 29:18; 35:5-6), the dead will be raised (Isa 26:19), and the poor will hear good news (Isa 61:1). For Matthew, it is a case of prophecy fulfilled. But for John, it would only have increased the tension between his messianic expectations and the actions of Jesus. Did John resolve this tension by revising his view of a fiery, winnowing-fork-wielding Messiah to fit the words and deeds of Jesus, who seemed more about ushering in a time of healing and salvation than one of harsh judgment? Would John decide that he was mistaken about Jesus and await another who better fit his picture of the Messiah? Or would John essentially ignore the reports of Jesus’ words and deeds, and go for a third option, as Ross’ study indicates humans like to do, and make Jesus over, to sound more like himself? Alas, we do not know if John took any of these options.

Christians today are faced with a wide variety of pictures of Jesus Christ. And these images are greater and more substantial than the rather thin liberal Jesus and conservative Jesus that Ross’ study provides. From serious scholars of Christian origins we have pictures of Jesus as a social reformer (Richard A. Horsley), a Jewish sage (Ben Witherington III), a cynic philosopher (John Dominic Crossan), a Jewish mystic (Marcus J. Borg), an eschatological prophet (E. P. Sanders), a marginal Jew (John P. Meier), and Israel’s true Messiah (N. T. Wright). No doubt we could add to the list. No doubt we could even divide up the list into scholars with whom we agree—or who agree with us—and those who are heretics. Oops. It’s easy to let our presuppositions guide the way, to dismiss others who views don’t fit with ours, rather than allow their witness to help us know Jesus better.

It’s Advent. Time to listen and repent, inquire and seek, expect and meet the Jesus who comes to us. If we feel some dissonance, the problem may be with us. Can we let Jesus reform us and our beliefs, restore our sight, unstop our ears, and raise us up to new life? Or will we try to fit and form Jesus into our own image and likeness? When Jesus comes again, will we recognize him even if he doesn’t look like us, talk like us, vote like us?