The Historical Jesus Goes to Church. By members of the Jesus Seminar. Santa Rosa, CA: Polebridge, 2004.

136 pp.

The chapters in this book were originally presentations by members of the Jesus Seminar concerning the
significance of the authentic sayings and deeds of the historical Jesus (i.e., as discerned by the Seminar) for the
church today. (The presentations were made to a gathering held March 2003 – not stated in the book – of those who
had “tried out” the Seminar’s findings in church settings.) Only one non-Seminar member is represented in this
book, namely, Francis McNab, Executive Minister of St. Michael’s Uniting Church, Melbourne, Australia, whose
church actively seeks to implement the Seminar’s findings.

Roy Hoover, Stephen Patterson, and Lane McGaughy write provocatively – almost manifesto-like – that the
Seminar’s material authorizes a new church, shorn of patriarchal dominance and theistic language, that will finally
bring to a close the long Dark Ages of Nicene traditionalism. Paradoxically, the more critically restrained and
modest chapters by Hal Taussig, Joe Bessler-Northcutt, and Charles Hedrick ask whether such optimism is well-
founded, given the Seminar’s discernment of admittedly minimal and fragmentary data about the historical Jesus.
They can see some implications for the church, but they carefully identify both areas where there may be
implications and where there probably are none. Those already predisposed to the Seminar’s findings will enjoy
confirming how the Seminar’s work is used.

Others, probably the majority, will find in this book further reminders of serious pitfalls in the Seminar’s approach
to Jesus, to the Bible, and to the church.

First, though the data concerning Jesus are admittedly fragmentary, several of the authors do not hesitate to draw
far-reaching conclusions. Glenna Jackson’s statement that “the gist of the historical-Jesus sayings mandate a
changed world” (90) is typical. It simply ignores alternative arguments. In this case, for example, scholars -- myself
included -- have carefully argued that these same sayings may evidence a Cynic-like wisdom that is sharply at odds
with reformist approaches.

Second, Seminar members’ rely exclusively on historical-critical tools, ignoring contemporary scholarly approaches
to biblical material (e.g., narrative analysis, the work of the Context Group, or Vernon Robbins’s socio-rhetorical
analysis). Are the historical-critical tools of the mid-20th century still “the methods of modern biblical scholarship”
(11, my emphasis)?

Third, the chapters are unreflectively mainline Protestant and American and ignore other voices. There is no
Catholic, Eastern Christian, or Evangelical perspective offered, nor even any European. More disturbing: no non-
Western voice is present, except those few that are allowed to be present in Jackson’s chapter through her ears and
voice -- a white, middle-class, mainline Protestant, North American woman. In fact, one gets the uncomfortable
feeling that several of these white, American authors are especially concerned about the traditional Christian
teaching that is now reaching American shores from distant lands.

In sum, this book contains some interesting scholarly reflections but is mostly a series of policy-statements for the
creation of a new anti-Nicene (sic) “church” and continuing Seminar cautions against traditionalism. The Seminar
would like to suggest that their new church will finally be a truly democratic and egalitarian one. Yet, if this book is
any indication, this new “church” will rather be one in which a new clerisy -- a haughty gentry that “knows better”
than the democratic masses who remain captive to traditionalist ideology (read à la Marx “lies”), ignoring, at their
peril, the Seminar’s sage advice -- guides its elitist adherents toward a worldly, therapeutic healing and washes its
hands of the ignorant masses. How ironic that members of this new “church” will, in the end, likely resemble more
the members of 1st century priestly or scribal circles than they will the confused and ignorant crowds that followed
the historical Jesus and sought of him what Temple and synagogue could not offer!

L. GREGORY BLOOMQUIST
Faculty of Theology, Saint Paul University
Ottawa, Ontario