Last week I was able to attend a series of lectures by Tom Wright at Wycliffe College in Toronto. A few of my friends and family members also attended and I was struck by a comment made by a sister-in-law after Wright concluded his series on Romans 8. She sat in silence for awhile after the lecture ended and then she turned to me and said this:
I feel that I have been so inundated with the message that “God loves me” that I have been reduced to the level of a daisy. Like God loves me and all the other pretty little flowers… I don't want to be a daisy.
She makes an excellent point. The contemporary Western Church so often focuses exclusively on a message of individual fulfillment. It's about me discovering how lovely I am. Of course, this is an important part of the Christian proclamation. Individually encountering the all-encompassing, transformative love of God is essential to living the Christian life. But it is only one part of the picture, and not even the main part. When Christianity is reduced to the proposition that “God loves me” then we end up being a bunch of beautiful, but brainless, daisies. This is so because Christianity is essentially a proclamation about Jesus of Nazareth and about the plans that the God of Israel* has for the entire world. Christianity is about being transformed in order to be agents of this God's new creation within the present moment. For, as Wright also said in his lecture series, “salvation is not primarily a gift given to the Church, it is a gift given through the Church to the world”.
Listening to Wright helps us to see how much is lost when Christianity is reduced to some of its present self-indulgent Western manifestations. Listening to Wright reminds us that we are individually members of a corporate body that has a task to fulfill. Wright provides us with a big picture without neglecting the details. And this must be recovered in the whole life of the Church. Serious teaching must be provided from the pulpit. The grand narrative of Christianity and all its intriguing, wonderful (and sometimes contradictory?!) details are not merely topics of discussions for seminarians — they should be topics presented to, discussed by, and puzzled over by the laity and the whole body of Christ. This is so because Christianity is a faith that claims every single area of daily living. Living Christianly requires a certain attitude towards business, towards politics, towards charity, towards family, towards children, and so on.
In 1 Corinthians 3, Paul laments the fact that he must continually go over the basics of Christianity with the Christians in Corinth. He began by providing them with “milk” since they were infants in the faith when he first met them, but he laments that the Corinthians have not yet moved on to “solid food”. A similar lament is made by the author of Hebrews who writes:
[W]e have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.
It seems that the contemporary Western Church has been gorging on milk and has little desire for solid food. Not only that but it seems that our milk has gone sour. It is time that we recovered the foundations of a substantial proclamation — a proclamation that reminds us that we are not daisies, we are agents of God's new creation, commissioned to enter into the groanings of world in order to make all things new.
_________
*By “the God of Israel” I am referring to the God of the people of Israel as he is described throughout the Old and New Testaments. Israel is the people of God as they are described in Scripture — the descendants of Abraham who, after Pentecost, also include the Gentiles. Therefore, within this post, I am most certainly not referring to the contemporary nation-state of Israel.

Liberation theology gives the gospel back its credibility.
~ Leonardo and Clodovis Boff
The proclamation of the gospel is to be a proclamation of good news. After all, “gospel” means “good news”. As contemporary Christians, it is worth asking the question: for whom is our gospel good news?
Within the world in which Jesus lived there were various gospel proclamations in competition with one another. In particular the gospel of Jesus, the good news of Jesus, competed with the gospel of Caesar, the good news of the Emperor. The word gospel, within the Roman Empire in the first century, would be heard as a political term, a term that related to the question of lordship. The Roman empire proclaimed a gospel that said that Caesar was Lord, while the early Christians burst onto the scene proclaiming a gospel that said that Jesus, and not Caesar, was Lord.
Thus, the gospel of Caesar was proclaimed every time the Emperor won a victory. The triumph of Caesar was good news for the elites — the wealthy, the established, the powerful, and the comfortable. Every victory won by Caesar was good news for the status quo.
However, the gospel of Jesus was proclaimed as good news for the poor. The victory won by Jesus was good news for the dispossessed, the helpless, the outcasts, the persecuted, and the sinners. On the cross, Jesus overcome all the brute force and violence of Rome, he overcome the separation that existed between God and humanity, and in his resurrection he revealed that transformation of an unimaginable sort was now bursting into the present moment of human existence. And this news is somewhat disconcerting to the status quo. It reveals that even the powerful must be held accountable, and resisted when necessary. It displays the corruption that goes hand in hand with wealth and comfort, and it asserts that one day the first will be last and the last will be first.
It is this gospel proclamation that the liberation theology birthed in Latin in America has sought to recover. This is why the Boff brothers are correct to assert the liberation theology “gives the gospel back its credibility”. By “credibility” we must not think that liberation theology makes the gospel more culturally relevant, nor must we think that it makes the gospel more pragmatic, rather recovering credibility means a recovery of true Christian identity. Simply put, liberation theology calls all of us Western Christians to stop living as liars. When we honestly embody the gospel of Jesus that is fundamentally good news for the poor, then we will once again be credible.
It saddens me how far the Western Church (and I include myself as a member of this Church) has strayed from this vocation. I had the privilege of listening to Bishop Tom Wright speak on this topic last week (actually, I'm hoping to blog about Wright's seminars and the discussions I was able to have with him but I'll save all that for later), and he too lamented how much of the Church has drifted. Wright compared much of the Western Church to a lighthouse keeper who decides to set up mirrors in order to keep all the light within the house… and then either turns a blind eye to all the ships that crash or the rocks, or blames the ships themselves for being unable to see in the darkness. Instead, Wright said, the Western Church must become like the early Church — God's groaning place in the midst of the darkest places of the world. He used the example of Christian communities in the first centuries that would remain in plague stricken cities — even after the wealthy (including all the doctors!) had fled — and care for the sick and dying, often becoming sick and dying with the others. This, Wright argued, should be the model that our Church seeks to emulate.
And I agree. When the Church embraces the poor, when the Church returns to the ghettoes, when the Church embraces those who suffer from AIDS, when the Church chooses to journey alongside of all those who are in pain, who are abandoned, and who are oppressed today — and genuinely enters into that pain, abandonment, and oppression — then we will once again be a body proclaiming a credible gospel.

The best way to evangelize the poor consists in allowing the poor themselves to become the church and help the whole church to become a truly poor church and a church of the poor.
~ Leonardo & Clodovis Boff, Introducing Liberation Theology
This suggestion, made by two Latin American liberation theologians, is correct but it only makes sense if we recover the radical nature of Jesus' proclamation of forgiveness. The Western Church will always have problems including the poor — and being a Church of the poor — as long as it requires that repentance and conversion precede the proclamation of forgiveness. The Western Church is all too compromised by the monopolies it tries to maintain. These monopolies consist of a monopoly of wealth, and a monopoly of “goodness”. Thus many Western Christians are able to be wealthy because they choose to allow others to remain poor, and they are able to affirm themselves as “good” because they choose to make the sins of others more grievous than their own sins. Therefore, this leads many Western Christians to claim one more monopoly — a monopoly on God. Those who are rich, and who are “good” must surely have God on their side.
Unfortunately, this is not the case. The Christian God does take sides and, to our great discomfort, this God sides with the poor and the oppressed. One cannot read the Bible with any amount of seriousness and not walk away with the realisation that God consistently sides with the oppressed and against the oppressors. Thus, in the Old Testament, God is the God who brings about an Exodus, liberating slaves and bringing them to a new land. In the Gospels, God is revealed in Jesus' radical solidarity with those on the margins of society. And in the Acts, God is the God of a Church that holds all things in common so that there would be no poor people within the community.
It is this God, in Jesus, who goes to the poor, the social outcasts, and the most blatant sinners (at least as understood by social standards — in Jesus' day these were the prostitutes and tax-collectors), and offers a message of radical forgiveness. Jesus came and told these people that they already were forgiven and so they were free to follow him in new life.
And this is the message the the Church must recover for the poor today. You, who suffer the greatest degree of exile, oppression, and godforsakenness, have been forgiven. You are beloved by God. Come journey with us. We desperately need you to journey with us if we are to know how to live faithfully as followers of Jesus. We need you to teach us how to be a poor Church. We need you to teach us how we have been compromised by our wealth, and by our self-serving notions of goodness. Please, teach us to be poor that we too may be blessed and inherit the kingdom of God.

Now the LORD said to Moses, “One more plague I will bring on Pharaoh and on Egypt; after that he will let you go from here. When he lets you go, he will surely drive you out from here completely. Speak now in the hearing of the people that each man ask from his neighbor and each woman from her neighbor for articles of silver and articles of gold.” …
Now the sons of Israel had done according to the word of Moses, for they had requested from the Egyptians articles of silver and articles of gold, and clothing; and the LORD had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they let them have their request. Thus they plundered the Egyptians.
~ Exodus 11.1-2, 12.35-36
The question of the relation of Christian theology to secular and pagan philosophy has long been questioned within the Christian tradition. Indeed, from the very beginnings of Christian theology this question has created controversy in the Church. Thus, Tertullian, writing in the early third century, rhetorically asks: “What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem?” Tertullian believed that Athens [pagan philosophy] has nothing whatsoever to do with Jerusalem [Christian theology]. However, other Church Fathers, notably Origen in the East in the late second century, and Augustine in the West in the late fourth century, argued that Christian theology could make significant gains by dialoguing with pagan philosophy and appropriating its methods, categories and terms. In this regard, both Origen and Augustine [and several others since then] used the analogy of “plundering the Egyptians” to speak of this appropriation. Just as Israel, in obedience to God, plundered Egypt on their way to the promised land, so also the Christian theologian can “plunder” pagan philosophy on the way to Christian theology.
However, I wonder a little about the approach of Origen, Augustine, & Co. After all, not long after the Hebrews plunder Egypt, what happens to the gold that they took with them into the wilderness? It was melted down and turned into a golden calf. Plundering Egypt leads fairly naturally into worshiping Egypt's gods. That is to say, Christian theology, in its eagerness to gain respectability, relevance, and practicality, can be a little too eager in its appropriation from secular philosophical systems, and the end result can be very appealing, impressive, and convincing… but not at all Christian. Plundering secular philosophies often leads to the abandonment of the Christian god. Our plunder becomes that which fuels our idolatry. To state things in an overly simplistic manner, this is the mistake often made by more Liberal theologians.
Furthermore, it seems that many contemporary Christian theologians are so eager to plunder Egypt that they don't just plunder Egypt as they depart. They return again and again to Egypt [note that God commands the Hebrews not to return to Egypt], and often end up deciding that the back and forth journey is a waste of time. And so they have taken up residence in Egypt, and have been delighted to do so. It's much more comfortable. In Egypt we get the security, respect, and acclaim we desire. Thus, we forget that the people of God are a people on the way to the holy land, and as such we will be forever seen as a little odd to those around us. Thus, as Hauerwas and Willimon say, we are “resident aliens” or as Rodney Clapp says, we are “a peculiar people”. After all, following Jesus is not a road that is altogether appealing, respectable or intelligible. Rather it is a road that seems foolish, embarrassing, distasteful, and painful. Too often our motive for plundering Egypt stems from our fear of carrying a cross. Instead of being a cruciform people presenting an embodied mystery to a wondering world, we become a respectable people presenting efficient arguments to a pragmatic world. To state things in an overly simplistic manner, this is the mistake often made by Conservative theologians.
In this regard, I am tempted to side with Tertullian. Of course, Tertullian himself was more influenced by the philosophy of his day than he seems to recognise. We are all inescapably contextual beings and will be shaped by the categories, themes, and methods of our times. Thus, if we are to avoid the mistake of either worshiping Egypts gods or making Egypt our home, we must maintain a critical distance from secular philosophical frameworks, hermeneutics, languages, and stories, while also reflecting critically upon ourselves.
God may have commanded the Hebrews to plunder Egypt, but the Church's vocation is rather different. Like Paul, we are to be “fools for Christ's sake… weak… without honour” saved not by the wisdom of the wise but by the “power of God” which destroys the wisdom of the wise and which is, therefore, a “stumbling block” to some and “foolishness” to the rest [cf. 1 Cor 1 & 4].

You go from dream to dream inside me. You have passage to my last shabby corner, and there, among the debris, you've found life. I'm no longer sure which of all the words, images, dreams or ghosts are “yours” and which are “mine.” It's past sorting out. We're both being someone new now, someone incredible…
~ Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow
That's exactly it. It is intimacy that makes us new and, to our own amazement, incredible. Yes, we really do become incredible — but we are so overwhelmed by the joy of the beloved that there is little room for vanity in our new-found self-awareness. It is our encounter with an oh so tender, oh so patient, and oh so certain affection that transforms us.
And this is exactly what I have found in God. I have found, or rather been found by, a God who has sifted through my shabby corners, who has entered into the debris of my life, and declared me to be something beautiful — and in that declaration I have actually become something beautiful.
It is this realisation that is the foundation for my own vision. Having been transformed by such an encounter how can I not see others as beautiful? It's not as though I am turning a blind-eye to everything that is hurtful, broken, or dirty within others, it's just that I have become aware of the fact that all of us are beloved by God. And when we start to see others as beloved, we also begin to discover that they are truly lovely. Yes, here too is beauty, here too is life, here too is that which takes my breath away.
And what I've really been meaning to say, all this time, is that I love you.

To treat gifts as entitlements and to complain about not getting more is to be a poor receiver and to wrong the giver.
~ Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace
Christians affirm the belief that all of the world, all of creation, is a gift from God, the Creator. It is not that creation is a gift to us, for us to use or manipulate as we choose, but rather that, as a part of creation, we are all gifts to one another. The earth is a gift to me, and I am a gift to the earth. My neighbour is a gift to me, and I am a gift to my neighbour. Based on this belief, being itself is seen as a gift. Life is a gift.
As a gift, life brings certain responsibilities, or better stated, life understood as a gift generates a particular perspective, a specific lens, through which we view ourselves and the world around us. Seen through this lens, the world around us becomes a sacrament, it points to the hand and purposes of the Giver. Such a perspective requires us to tread a little more softly than we would otherwise, it requires us to consider that those around us may be far more sacred than we have previously realised. Suddenly we discover awe in the most unlikely places. And gratitude becomes that which dictates how we live and act.
It is also this perspective that causes me to be uncomfortable with the language of human rights. This is not to say that those who pursue human rights have bad motives or wrong goals. The motives and goals of those involved in the world of human rights are quite admirable. However, seeing life, and all that comes with it, as a right also functions as a perspective, and a specific lens, through which we view ourselves and the world around us. This views approaches life as something that is owed to us, or rather, something that is owed to me. Thus my life becomes structured around ensuring that I get what is mine. Within this view, the human person becomes the be all and end all of life. The world and people around us are not sacraments of some other Giver, they are not sacred, rather they are individuals who deserve respect — meaning that they should not be harmed and should be left to themselves, just like I should be left to myself. There is little room for awe here, we only discover what is mine, and what is yours. Thus, entitlement replaces gratitude as that which dictates how we live and act. Such a mentality actually fits surprisingly well with a consumer culture, for, as long as I'm not harming others than I can come to believe that I am entitled to more and more (of course, such a mentality, although rather prevalent, is quite naive for almost all Western consumption harms others).
Therefore, if we are to find a way forward that truly recovers the true humanity of ourselves and those around us, and recovers the sacredness of creation, we must ensure that we view life as a gift, not, as a right. Gratitude, not entitlement, should dictate our approach to life.

Conclusion
This paper has attempted to study Jesus as prophet, it has challenged the interpretation of Jesus provided by Rudolph Bultmann and the Jesus Seminar, and highlighted the strengths and weaknesses of various streams of scholarship that see Jesus as an apocalyptic, social, or charismatic prophet. Of the scholars mentioned it seems that Tom Wright does the best job of holding the various streams together. Following his lead, and refusing to create a false dichotomy between the apocalyptic and the social (and the charismatic), this section will highlight essential elements of the prophetic that should be present if it is to be exercised appropriately today. It will then conclude with a word on Jesus as “more than a prophet”.
Synthesis: Twelve Elements Essential to the Prophetic
Based upon the positions surveyed in this paper, twelve elements are essential to the contemporary prophetic movement.
One: The contemporary prophetic movements must be grounded in biblical eschatology. Prophecy is fundamentally concerned with a memory of the past, an awareness of God's future, and an understanding of what time it is right now. Apart from this eschatological foundation, prophetic movements are bound to drift off into arbitrary, and often largely inconsequential, activities.
Two: Closely related to the first point, the contemporary prophetic movement must be thoroughly apocalyptic. Here apocalyptic must be understood as that which invests current events with their theological significance. In a way this understanding of apocalyptic ties in well with contemporary charismatic prophetic movements that emphasise the role that prophesy has in speaking into the life of individuals. However, it challenges contemporary movements (which focus primarily upon speaking prophetically to individuals) to address larger social issues and institutions.
Three: Closely related to a foundation in eschatology and apocalyptic, the contemporary prophetic movement must be thoroughly rooted within the Christian Scriptures. Contemporary prophets must also be teachers of the Word, offering new or forgotten readings that counter interpretations of Scripture that either support, or are apathetic toward, contemporary structures of violent power.
Four: Thus, contemporary prophetic movements must by actively, subversively, and radically political. The political nature of Jesus, and all the biblical prophets, is inescapable, and contemporary prophetic movements cannot simply retreat into self-gratifying religious communities, nor can they simply affirm the state authorities, as if they are God's chosen leaders. The contemporary prophetic movement must maintain a critical distance from political parties, while actively engaging society.
Five: As socially subversive groups, contemporary prophetic movements must be restoration movements. This means that they must live in radical solidarity with those on the margins of society, they must turn the tables of the socially acceptable religious order that perpetuates cycles of exile and declare forgiveness to sinners, freedom to captives, and sight to the blind. In this regard, the miraculous elements often associated with the contemporary charismatic prophetic movement must be restored into an intimate relationship with the proclamation of forgiveness and the end of exile. Too often contemporary miracles are simply seen as necessary for the betterment and gratification of the one receiving the healing, yet miracles removed from their eschatological and radical sociological significance are miracles divorced from their true purpose.
Six: This also means that contemporary prophetic movements must issue a call for repentance and warn the powers that be that the risk facing the judgement of a God who sides with the oppressed and against the oppressors. The contemporary prophetic movement must be able speak specifically about certain events, and name specific institutions, and even specific individuals who perpetuate cycles of exile, and call them to repentance. Just as Jesus spoke critically of the religious leaders and the temple institution, so also a large part of this contemporary call to repentance and warnings of judgement must be directed toward Western Christians and the Western Church.
Seven: However, the contemporary prophetic movement cannot avoid the fact that the ultimate enemy of God's desire for reconciliation is not a human institution or construct but a spiritual being — Satan. This realisation will also help prevent the contemporary prophetic movement from demonising any humans, even if that contemporary human engages in more violent and cruel practices than the Caesars of Jesus' day. Thus, the contemporary prophetic movement must learn to engage in spiritual warfare, and engage in such activities as intercessory prayer. The contemporary charismatic prophetic movement has already made several important steps in this regard, although it often become so focused on this element that is loses track of point six.
Eight: Members of contemporary prophetic movements must embody a cruciform lifestyle defined by suffering love. This notion counters much of the self-gratification that exists within contemporary charismatic prophetic movements. Contrary to popular teaching following Jesus does not mean the removal of suffering; it means loving others deeply enough to enter into their suffering so that that suffering can be overcome. Thus, it should come as no surprise that among the Beatitudes that are to function as the identity markers of the people of God, Jesus says those who are persecuted are blessed, for the prophets were also persecuted for the same reasons. This love is also a love for oppressors, not just for the oppressed, and this love of enemies manifests itself through the refusal to resort to violence.
Nine: Members of contemporary prophetic communities must be energised by a hope that flourishes in the midst of suffering. This hope is solidly grounded in eschatology — in the memory of what God has done in Jesus Christ, what the Spirit has done since Pentecost, and what the Father will do when the kingdom is consummated. It is this hopeful energising that should separate the contemporary prophetic movement from most of the scholars surveyed in this paper. Faith in the resurrection, and in the inauguration of the new creation, can be the only lasting foundation for any Christian prophetic word or act that is performed today. This hope also motivates the Christian love for enemies for it believes that enemies can be transformed into friends.
Ten: All of this should lead the contemporary prophetic movement to pursue deeper intimacy with God as Father. This emphasis has been one of the greatest strengths of contemporary charismatic prophetic movements, and it should be encouraged. Furthermore, it should be expanded so that God is not only seen as my Father but as Father of all people and all creation and especially as the loving Father of the poor and the oppressed.
Eleven: All of this requires the contemporary prophetic movement to espouse a radical dependence upon the Spirit of God. It is by being in Christ, and by being indwelt by the Spirit of Christ, that the Church is empowered to live as a prophetic community. Within our pragmatic and efficient culture the notion of dependence is often downplayed as we seek more effective and successful means of engaging with those around us. However, the contemporary prophetic movement must be cautious of techniques and approaches that appeal to us as Westerners, and it must learn to listen to the Spirit who acts in surprisingly new ways, and even leads us where we have no desire to be led.
Twelve: Therefore, the contemporary prophetic movement must espouse a holistic approach to mission and the proclamation of the good news of the story of Jesus' Lordship. This means that the contemporary prophetic movement must be constantly flowing out to all people, to all sectors of society, and to all parts of the world, proclaiming the entire Christian story embodied in the canon of Scripture and the prophetic traditions of the Church.
Jesus as more than a Prophet
This paper has sought to study Jesus as a prophet by integrating insights from various streams of scholarship. Although the purpose of this study was to examine what implications this has for our contemporary understanding of prophecy it seems appropriate to conclude with a final word about Jesus. It is in this final section that we pick up our opening question taken from Mark's gospel when Jesus, after being told that the crowds tended to think of him as a prophet, asks his disciples: Who do you say that I am?
Most of the scholars examined in this paper paint a picture of Jesus as prophet that largely diverges from the Christ of faith. Thus, those who belong to the Jesus Seminar tend to see Jesus as less than a prophet. Those who belong to the apocalyptic prophetic stream tend to see Jesus as only a prophet, and a failed one at that. Those who belong to the social prophetic stream also tend to see Jesus as only a prophet, but Jesus was an excellent prophet from this perspective. Finally, those who belong to the charismatic prophetic stream also tend to see Jesus as only a prophet, although what sort of prophet Jesus was remains rather vague.
However, some of the scholars mentioned in this paper — Tom Wright, James Dunn, Ben Witherington, Mortimer Arias, and Walter Brueggemann — see Jesus as a prophet, but they also see Jesus as more than a prophet. This papers agrees with these scholars and with the disciples in Mark who declare that Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of God, and it also affirms the salvific death and glorious resurrection of Jesus. It is faith in the divinity of Jesus that provides Christian prophetic movements with the assurance that they are acting as agents of God's new creation, and not just simply participating in a long line of mostly misguided apocalypticists, or failed social radicals.
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Two Pastoral Reflections on Jesus as Prophet: Arias and Brueggemann
This paper has largely focused upon scholarly approaches that examine the historical Jesus as an apocalyptic, a social, and a charismatic prophet. Before concluding and tying together what can be learned from this broad range of scholarship it is worth examining two reflections on Jesus' relevance for our understanding of the prophetic that have been written from a more pastoral perspective — although the men writing, Mortimer Arias and Walter Brueggemann, are scholars in their own right.
Mortimer Arias: Prophetic Annunciation, Denunciation, Witness, and Consolation
Mortimer Arias, in his study of the prophetic rooted in Jesus' proclamation of the reign of God, approaches the prophetic from four angles. Arias argues that hope is the central motif of the prophet, and the motive for the prophet's mission. And hope is thoroughly eschatological for it means living with a future-orientation that makes living in the present meaningful. Thus, Christians who follow Jesus and prophetically announce the kingdom of God as hope, announce “a future which every present takes meaning from, and in which every past is redeemed”. This proclamation of hope also means denouncing any power, program, or purpose that opposes God's plan, and so the prophet, like Jesus, must maintain a critical distance from any political order, while simultaneously engaging with society. In this regard, it is essential that the prophet speak against specific structures, for silence or vague talk negates hope. Arias also emphasises that prophets who witness in this manner will face suffering, persecution, and misunderstanding, and, therefore, will truly become witnesses to hope in the fullest sense of the word — they, like Jesus and the prophets before him, will be martyrion. Finally, as witnesses to hope, prophets will follow Jesus and engage in a ministry of consolation to the broken-hearted and the oppressed. Thus, prophets of hope must combine annunciation, denunciation, suffering and consolation, and each of these elements should not be separated from any of the others.
Walter Brueggemann: Prophetic Pathos and Energising
Walter Brueggemann further fills out the study of Jesus as social prophet by emphasising two elements: prophetic pathos and prophetic energising. Brueggemann begins by closely following scholarship that links Jesus to the social prophetic stream, and he argues that Jesus engaged in the ultimate criticism of the powers and “the royal consciousness”. Jesus, according to Brueggemann, dismantles the dominant culture and nullifies its claims through his solidarity, and shared vulnerability, with the marginalised. By proclaiming forgiveness, Jesus threatened religious sanctions that functioned as social controls; by healing, especially on the Sabbath, Jesus placed freedom from rejection over the social order; and by eating with outcasts, Jesus embodied a critique of the heart of the temple's purity structure. In all of these acts Jesus juxtaposes prophetic grief with royal rage, and thus Jesus is moved primarily by compassion and pathos. As Brueggemann writes: “Compassion constitutes a radical form of criticism, for it announces that the hurt is to be taken seriously, that the hurt cannot be accepted as normal and natural but as an abnormal and unacceptable condition for humanness”. Jesus replaces royal numbness with prophetic suffering love, and this is what truly triggers a social revolt, for empires can tolerate charity and good intentions but not solidarity with pain and grief. By internalising the pain of the marginalised, Jesus and the prophets before him bring to expression all that the royal culture has tried to repress or deny. And this prophetic pathos culminates with Jesus' death on the cross, which announces the end of a culture of death by taking on death and provides the ultimate assurance that prophetic criticisms must be done not by outsiders but by those who intimately know the pain of the marginalised. However, the prophetic does not stop with pathos but it engages in a radical energising premised upon the resurrection and the in-breaking of new life where none was expected. The resurrection is the ultimate energising for the new future. Therefore, the prophetic counteracts numbness through grief, and despair through a new future. The prophetic ministry evokes alternative communities and operates by “offering an alternative perception of reality and in letting people see their own history in light of God's freedom and his will for justice”.

Jesus as Charismatic Prophet: Vermes, Dunn, Twelftree, Rivkin & Borg
Within this section we will examine scholars who argue that Jesus is better understood outside the categories of “apocalyptic/oracular” and “social/leadership”. Instead, these scholars prefer to present Jesus as a prophet that more closely resembles our contemporary understanding of charismatic prophets. We will begin by looking at the work of Gaza Vermes, before moving to James Dunn's comments. We will then briefly examine the writings of Graham Twelftree and Ellis Rivkin before commenting on Marcus Borg's model of Jesus (which fits this category, albeit awkwardly). Finally we will conclude with some critical reflection upon this perspective.
Gaza Vermes: Jesus the Hasid
Gaza Vermes, who began his career as a scholar as a Christian but later on converted to Judaism, argues that Jesus, as a first century prophet who performed healings and exorcisms while proclaiming forgiveness, belongs within the stream of charismatic Judaism. Although there were other exorcists and healers, notably magicians, Vermes argues that Jesus does not follow their prescribed rites, methods and incantations. Rather, Jesus' spontaneous and unscripted actions parallel those of the “holy men” known as the “Hasidim”. Thus, Vermes compares Jesus to two other notable Hasidim of Second Temple Judaism: Hanina ben Dosa and Honi the Cirle Drawer. The Hasidim were charismatics who performed miraculous deeds because of their intimacy with God, and the greater their healing power, the greater their intimacy with God. The Hasidim were able to perform healings through their prayers because the devil was believed to be at the root of sickness and sin, and so contact with God would drive the devil out. Vermes argues that the Hasidim were so intimate with God when they prayed that they referred to God as Father, and this is one of the marked characteristics of Jesus' prayers. Thus, Vermes concludes that Jesus is the paramount example of the early Hasidim and the heir of the prophetic tradition.
James Dunn: Jesus the Spirit-Inspired Prophet with Authoritative Charisma
James Dunn argues that because Jesus' words were inspired by the Spirit to effect forgiveness, and because his acts were inspired by the Spirit to effect healing, Jesus is naturally a charismatic figure. However, Dunn recognises that “charismatic” is a rather broad term and so he seeks to put it into its appropriate context. Dunn argues that Jesus had a reputation as a miracle worker, and this reputation comes to us in “explicitly charismatic terms” for the working of dunameis (might deeds) belonged to the charismata, and the dunameis authenticated the doer of those deeds as a person of the Spirit. Thus, Dunn describes Jesus as a charismatic because everything about Jesus was inspired by the Spirit.
Furthermore, what was true of Jesus' deeds was also true of his teachings and his presence, and so there is a charismatic nature to Jesus' authority in general. In his ability to provoke respect and awe, Jesus, Dunn argues, must have possessed a divinely appointed charisma (with charisma fitting the more standard definition as the ability to inspire fear, awe, confidence, trust, or hostility). Thus, Jesus was a charismatic in the sense that he manifested a power and an authority which were not his own but were given to him by virtue of God's Spirit upon him.
In exploring Jesus as a charismatic of this sort Dunn distances Jesus from other first century charismatics by arguing that Jesus was not an ecstatic — evidence that would support the notion of Jesus as an ecstatic simply does not exist within the Gospels and the early Jesus tradition. By distancing Jesus from the ecstatics Dunn paints a portrait of Jesus as a missional and ethical charismatic prophet. As he concludes, “As [Jesus] found God in prayer as Father, so he found God in mission as power… [and] in this two-fold experience of Jesus we see clearly interwoven both the ethical and the charismatic”.
Graham Twelftree and Ellis Rivkin: Jesus as Exorcist and as the Charismatic of Charismatics
In addition to the works of Vermes and Dunn, Graham Twelftree has highlighted the exorcisms and placed them at the core of Jesus' work as a charismatic prophet. However, he is careful to distance Jesus from the other first century Jewish exorcists by arguing that Jesus closely linked eschatological significance with the exorcisms he performed. Demons were cast out, not simply because Jesus was close to God, but because the kingdom of God was at hand.
Ellis Rivkin, like Dunn, picks up on the notion of charisma as the ability to gather and hold a crowd. In this regard, Jesus was the “charismatic of charismatics” and it is this that inevitably leads to Jesus' death. Rivkin argues that Jesus was nonviolent and largely apolitical in his mission or message — but Jesus was politically dangerous because he attracted crowds that could become quite unpredictable and violent. Thus, Jesus was executed because of the potential, although unintended, political consequences of his teaching and popularity.
Marcus Borg: Jesus the Spirit-Person
Finally, this section concludes with a comment on the work of Marcus Borg. Borg, like Crossan and even more like Thiessen, is difficult to fit into the categories used to structure this paper. He is a member of the Jesus Seminar and sees Jesus as a subversive sage, but he also argues that Jesus was a radical social prophet and movement founder who espoused a fully here-and-now approach to eschatology and apocalyptic. However, Borg argues that all of these ideas about Jesus are firmly rooted in the notion of Jesus as a Spirit-Person, and this becomes the fundamental paradigm that he applies to Jesus. Thus, as a Spirit-Person Jesus was a visionary mystic, a channel through which God's Spirit flowed to others, a healer, and a person with a deep personal relationship with God. Borg also highlights the fact that this notion of Jesus as a Spirit-Person also fits well with the charismatic experiences that abounded in the New Testament church. Finally, as a Spirit-Person, Borg's Jesus is incredibly compassionate, and thus Borg's focus on Jesus as a charismatic is used to downplay the moral teachings of Jesus.
Critical Reflection
Scholars within this category have made two particular valuable contributions to the study of Jesus as prophet. They have shown how Jesus' mission and teachings were inextricably linked to the working of the Spirit, and they have also highlighted the intimacy that Jesus has with God the Father. However, there a few criticisms that must be mentioned.
First of all, Vermes' notion of Jesus as an Hasid faces several challenges. The Hasidim were known as “ultrapietistic” and “ultrastrenuous” observers of the law, and the Jesus of the Gospels (or Borg's charismatic Jesus, for that matter) does not sit comfortably within either of those categories. Secondly, the miracles effected by the Hasidim, and first century charismatics in general, was linked to rigorous, painstaking, and prolonged prayer, and this does not fit well with the healings performed by Jesus. Thirdly, although the Hasidim expressed intimacy with God, Jesus is unique in proclaiming God as “abba”. Fourthly, as noted by Twelftree and by the scholars who see Jesus as a social prophet, Jesus' miracles carried eschatological significance and this sets him well apart from the first century charismatics. Fifthly, like Dunn, Gunther Bornkamm argues that charismatics tended to appeal to ecstatic states and visions for legitimation, but Jesus hardly does this at all. Sixthly, as a charismatic, Jesus would have had difficult gathering a large popular following, and would likely have been held in greater suspicion, and be seen as more deviant, by the crowds. Finally, it should also be noted that these scholars also tend to separate the Jesus of history from the Christ of faith, and tend not to see Jesus as divine, or put much weight in the resurrection narratives.
Therefore, although there is some plausibility in seeing Jesus as a charismatic prophet, this type is not without its problems. However, the greatest problem with this perspective is the fact that it is altogether too vague and leaves out too much material. Therefore, we can conclude this section in agreement with Ben Witherington who (rather graciously) writes:
While it is accurate to call Jesus a Spirit person, a charismatic holy man, or an exorcist, this is only a partial explanation of the gospel evidence about Jesus… Interpreters must avoid the pitfall of mistaking the part for the whole in attempting to portray Jesus.
Thus, those who participate within the contemporary charismatic prophetic movement, who are correct to emphasise the ongoing significance, and miraculous workings, of the Spirit and the Fatherhood of God, would do well to fill out their understanding of the prophetic by becoming more firmly rooted in the apocalyptic and social approaches to the prophetic.