Christ and the political movements of His time

Abstract

To-day such questions are being asked, and answers given of all sorts. Reconstructions of Jesus as a first century guerilla-fighter have found some favour in recent years. Radical students in their demonstrations, in France, for example, in 1967, asked whether Jesus, too, was not a revolutionist! Actionist clergymen, Catholic as well as Protestant, have claimed this kind of Jesus as a model. Eminent and sophisticated theologians have been talking increasingly since 1966 about a "theology of revolution" (every phenomenon, of course, has to have a theology). The World Council of Churches, in some of its deliberations, has embraced such terminology, and forwarded contributions so earmarked from Churches to LIBERATION MOVEMENTS in Africa. Even quite conservative Christians have begun to talk about "radical" and "revolutionary Christianity allowing at times that Jesus was a "REVOLUTIONIST" though they wish to differentiate quite carefully the method of the revolution he began from more violent ones. It is clear that in the last decade or two this persistent current in the stream of life-of-Jesus study, which sees him as a political rebel, has combined with proving concern in Christianity about the world of politics and economics (the issues of peace and bread for all men-) and the revolutionary mood of our day, to project this approach into prominence as one of the options for depicting Jesus.