“Dr. Ravi Zacharias: My Tribute to a Distant Intellectual Mentor and Teacher”

The famed Christian philosopher and apologist Dr. Ravi Zacharias has recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. We do not know how long he’s going to be with us. As a result, I would like to share a brief testimony with you about how Dr. Zacharias has transformed my life. This is also a way for me to pay a tribute to him.

When I was in College, I began to listen to Ravi Zacharias regularly through his international radio program called “Let My People Think.” Literally, I listened to his philosophical talks every day, both before and after class. He would captivate my mind through his vast knowledge, critical reasoning, and intellectuality. In the process, Dr. Zacharias has become instantly my distant intellectual teacher and mentor. It was through his philosophical and religious writings and lectures that I have learned about the most important philosophers, both from the East and the West. He was through him that I encountered the most leading ideas in the world of philosophy and religious studies (i.e. Hinduism). For example, he introduced me to the central ideas of Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Nietzsche, Bertrand Russell, C.S. Lewis, Rousseau, Voltaire, Hume, Sartre, Dewey, Plantinga, Lennox, Craig, Foucault, Derrida, Rorty, James, etc. Although I took four philosophy classes in College, Ravi was my best philosophy teacher. After I graduated from College, I applied to the University of South Florida to pursue an M.A. in (analytical) philosophy. (Unfortunately, I did not enroll in the philosophy program there.) His impact was so strong on me that I wanted to study philosophy professionally and at the academic level.

I must admit that Dr. Zacharias has become the most influential Christian thinker in my life. Language is not adequate to describe his impact on my intellectual development and analytical thinking. In the time of tape recording, I purchased literally every series he produced such as his famous philosophical lecture series at Ohio State University: “Jesus Among Other Gods,” as well as his thought-provoking lecture “Why I am a Christian,” in which he used analytical method and reasoning to argue for theism by deconstructing atheistic ideas in Western Philosophical tradition.

It was Mr. Zacharias who had fueled in me a passion to study in great detail the historicity of the New Testament Gospels, to test the validity of the texts of the New Testament, and to critically evaluate the claims of the resurrection of Jesus. As an Indian philosopher, he had also introduced me to another philosophical tradition beyond the West: Indian Philosophy. He has helped me to explore another worldview and to see the world intellectually from different epistemological lenses. Not only have I learned from him some of the greatest thinkers and philosophers India has produced; he had sparked the fire in me to learn more about Hinduism and Indian poetry and literature. It was also through Zacharias’s rich interdisciplinary knowledge and his impressive expertise on various religious traditions that I became interested in other religious traditions closer to home such as the Haitian Vodou.

Today, my heart is in pain because my teacher and mentor Ravi Zacharias, who had taught me many viable lessons about the life of the mind and the life of the soul (as he himself a devoted follower of Jesus Christ), is in critical medical condition. I pray for his recovery and also wish that his wife Margie and children and friends will find peace and comfort in these difficult times. I also invite you to pray urgently and fervently for Mr. Ravi Zacharias.

#LetMyPeopleThink

#RaviZacharias

Emisyon Chita Koze (10 Me 2020) – Nou te resevwa envite: Dr. Celucien Joseph (@doctorlou1978) – Pwofesè/Teolojyen. Nou te pale sou ide filozofik e teolojik ansyen Prezidan Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

https://t.co/JYrBvBoftw

“Jodi a Nou leve w Pi Wo: A Mother’s Day Poem”

Jodi a nou leve w pi wo pase tout mòn ki pi wo yo.
Jodi a pitit ou yo selebre yon gwo manman ki wo.
Yo di ou toujou rete cho.
Ou toujou pote chaj ki pi gwo.

Lè tèt mwen cho ou retire m nan kacho.

Yo di se ou ki pi bon sou latè dayiti.
Ou toujou fè moun ri.
Bò kote w gen lavi ki pap fini.
Lanmou ki pap janm detwi.
Bèl lèv ou yo fè tout moun dòmi.
Ou gen yon bote ki pap janm pouri.
Zantray ou yo di ou se yon fanm ki fè tout moun souri.
Ou toujou sove ti moun ki pèdi.
Ou pa pè mouye nan lapli.

Yo di ou se yon negrès ki renmen.
Jodi a nou afime tout valè ou genyen, pi pwesye ke demen.
Ou se yon fanm ki geri m lèm blese.
Ou kowe m lèm tonbe.
Ou kenbe menm lèm bwate.

Tout lanati ak pye bwa koube fòn yo pou onore ou.
Ti zwazo nan bwa yo chante bèl melodi pou ou.
Menm rosignòl leve danse pou bèl koulè po ou.
Malfini nan rak bwa pawaze sou tèt ou san rete.
Papiyon chanje koulè lè l gade w.
Cheval nan vale yo kanpe pou di w bonjou.
Mouton pèdi imilite l lè l rankontre.
Balèn lanmè jwe troubadou pou ou.
Lasirèn pèdi bote l lè l fè fas a ou.
Sous dlo nan fowè sovaj yo bay dlo ki pi fre paske se fèt ou.
M ekri yon bèl pwezi pou ou.

Tout vakabon Pòtoprens dakò ou se yon fanm san fot.
Ti mesye Okap yo pè fan m sa a.
Ti gran moun Gonayiv di ou kenbe tèt ou.
M di ou se yon fanm ki gen bon kè.
Zanmi ou yo di ou pa janm kenbe yo nan kè.
Paske ou renmen ak tout kè.

Jodi a tout moun leve w pi wo pase tout mòn ki pi wo.

After my white evangelical Christian friend from College read the article I wrote about the killing of #AhmaudAubery for #TheWitnessBCC, he wrote this heartbroken and insensitive note to me. He still does not understand or does not want to understand the fragility of black life in America.

Click on the link below to read the article:

Ahmaud Arbery, the Killing of Whiteness, & the Preservation of Black Lives in America

Here are his words:

“Plz explain why you are upset about those two guys in Georgia and not upset about black on Black Death that is sky high? I’m not being argumentative…I’m trying to understand. I feel like I only hear from you and others when there’s a white on black killing. It seems like you are possessed of an ideology that believes whites hate black ppl and have created a system designed to kill them. There’s no word from you or anyone unless there’s an interracial crime with a white perpetrator. The way many talk (you included) it would seem like the systemic issues are wide spread and a genocide is happening right before our eyes. 1. Do you believe that all whites want to kill blacks? 2. Do you believe that every single level of government is filled with white people out to kill blacks? 3. Do you believe this is everywhere in our country? Every town…city…state…all completely dedicated to the mission of murdering blacks? Again not offended or being argumentative. I understand that blacks deserve to be angry about what whites have done for hundreds of years. It this is generational hate/resentment then fine. I’m trying to understand…I’m sure I can’t (I guess). Don’t respond if you don’t want to. I’m at peace with knowing the system is slowly improving the more engaged ppl are in it.”

“The Killing of Whiteness and the Preservation of Black Lives in America”

There’s something terribly wrong with this country’s Justice system if we have to celebrate the arrest of an individual who has committed horrific acts of evil or violence against Black and African people.

If black citizens in this country have to demand for justice every time a crime is committed against a black person, there’s something awful and tragic about our democracy, our collective moral conscience, and our regard for human life and dignity.

We need to stop singing “God bless America” until we reconstitute this nation and our selves (on both levels: individual and collective), restructure its Justice system, humanize the black experience, and renew the American mind toward equal and pure justice, moral decency, and a high value of black lives & the most vulnerable in society.

The fundamental reason black people keep shouting that #BlackLivesMatters is simply because the structure of our Justice system and public policies denies the reality that black people’s lives do in fact matter. It is also because white supremacy denies the practical existence and visibility of Black people in society. It is also because our laws and democracy never fully deracinated the hegemonic omnipresence of white power in society and never resolved the overwhelming impact of white privilege in culture.

Black lives and the life of the most vulnerable will matter only if the citizens of this nation, in their diversity and various expressions, deliberately continue to challenge the unjust structures embedded in the nation’s Justice system and public policies, reassess the country’s moral standing, annihilate white dominion, and eradicate the special status of whiteness in society.

Moreover, it may appear the American nation is democratically independent and sovereign, and has enjoyed unrelenting years of political freedom, power, and liberty. Yet since the birth of this nation, our collective soul has been restless to experience genuine internal peace and true freedom among the citizens.

The democracy we have constructed has never been fully tried in every segment of the American life.  America’s lofty Enlightenment ideals have never been extended to radically transform the experience and life of every American citizen. A central reason of this attitude and reaction lies in our personal (ideological) beliefs and collective refusal to confront our internal fears and reevaluate the dark moments of our history and the inhumane side of our laws.

The American freedom we have sustained in the past four hundred years and even championed at world’s stage has never crossed the boundary of race relations and human solidarity, never tested the limits of white supremacy and human hospitality, and it has never transgressed the purity of racial ideas and the politics of racial prejudice that mark the nation’s nascent human relations and social dynamics.

Consequently, we must question our emotional insensitivity toward death and black death, in particular, and interrogate our lack of empathy toward human suffering, especially the tragedy of black pain and suffering in America. It is of vital importance to incorporate in our everyday practices an ethics of responsibility and accountability toward life, black life in specific and that of the most vulnerable groups in our society, also. A true democracy must uphold the value and worth of human life and destroy every deliberate and unjust attempt to eradicate human life and existence.

Toward this goal, it would require that the citizens of this nation and its elected officials to undo the negative aspects of our democratic structure and Judicial system and foster a democratic life in America that is built upon different sets of human and moral values and an alternative category of human nature, such as a democratic experience that is predicated upon a rigorous anti-racist foundation and grounded on the ethics of hospitality, social justirespect for human life, interconnectedness, and mutual reciprocity and accountability.

No matter the cost this nation will pay and should render, the people of this country must kill whiteness for the preservation of black lives and the safety of the most vulnerable in the American society. This is the commitment  we together must undertake to experience genuine internal peace and interracial harmony for the sake of human dignity and the future generation. This choice is mine; it is  yours also, and it is available to every American citizen today toward the path of humility and grace.

———————————————–‘

Every Black father knows #AhmaudArbery is also his son.

Every Black mother knows #AhmaudArbery is also her son.

As a Black father of two Black sons, I know #AhmaudArbery is also my son.

This matter is about the dignity & sanctity of black life that is always being questioned and dehumanized and always at stake, at risk, and in danger in this country.

We mourn about the destruction of #blacklives.

We lament about the end of #blacklives.

We are outraged about the vulnerability and insecurity of #blacklives.

We lose words when #blacklives are gone.

This is not about politics. It’s a question about the moral value and worth, and the preservation and safety of #blacklives. Is #AhmaudArbery your son? Can you see him as your boy? Who is worthy to be called your son?

#theologizinginblack is one of six books The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education recommended last week. Thanks to all who have supported this book, not only by purchasing but by sharing it on various social media platforms.

Recent Books of Interest to African American Scholars

https://haitithenandnow.wordpress.com/2020/05/01/haiti-then-and-now-interviews-professor-patrick-bellegarde-smith/

“Haitian Thinkers in the Public Space: An Interview Series”

“Haiti Then and Now” is pleased to share with you our interview with Professor Patrick Bellegarde-Smith

Please share widely!

“‘Almost Postcolonial’: Understanding Jean Jacques Dessalines’ Postcolonial Practices in the new State of Haiti”

(*** This post is an excerpt from a book chapter I am writing on Dr. Madeleine Sylvain Bouchereau’s brilliant critique of the colonial system and human practices and relations in postcolonial Haiti. In this chapter, I am also interacting with Mocombe’s important book, “Identity and Ideology in Haiti: The Children of Sans Souci, Dessalines/Toussaint, and Petion” [Routledge, 2018]).

“‘Almost Postcolonial’: Understanding Jean Jacques Dessalines’ Postcolonial Practices in the new State of Haiti”

Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Haiti’s first postcolonial leader and the Father of the Haitian nation, and the First Emperor in the American continent, was determined to establish a truly postcolonial state in the new nation of Haiti. In fact, he laid the elementary foundations and principles that are grounded on the logic of decoloniality and an anticipated postcolonial life and experience in Haiti; yet the structures and systems of a truly postcolonial state never took roots in Haiti because the colonial remnants and practices were never fully eradicated in the new evolving First Black Republic in the Western world. Correspondingly, decolonial stuctures and practices were never never fully integrated in the country’s political institutions and public policies, as well as in Haiti’s civil and political societies :

1. Military force and National Safety: Emperor Jean Jacques Dessalines instituted a new army, composed of former valiant warriors of the Haitian Revolution, to protect the new nation against potential new conquests by the country’s old and new enemies.
2. Structures and Systems: he established the bases for new economic and judicial institutions in the new country that were independent on the slave economic model of the former colonial Saint-Domingue. Yet the postcolonial economic system of Haiti was associated with the agricultural model of Western capitalist economy.
3. Social order and New regulations: the new postcolonial administration established rigorous regulations to administer the social life and order in the country by beginning with the affirmation of individual rights of property and ownership, as well as equitable public policies regulating trade and commerce, and the civil state and the justice system, the assurance of the rights for “natural” children, the army, and the Haitian culture; yet in various ways, these laws were dependent upon the antecedent colonial judicial system of the Metropole (i.e. France), which have also shaped Haiti’s legislating branch. These new regulations would also influence the meaning and workings of the “new” postcolonial Haitian family; while the state encouraged the traditional marriage, it attempted to decline the old concubinage practice in the country—an ancestral tradition that is still practiced in the contemporary Haitian society, particularly in the country’s countryside—because it somewhat contributed to the economic instability of the traditional family and internal conflict between the spouses and natural and biological children.
4. Religion and Politics: while the Emperor enacted a new law to protect and keep the colonial French priests in the country, he passed very strict laws regulating the practice of religion in the country and disciplinary actions against the “new clergy” that could potentially serve as agents of France in the new country (It was until the 1960s, President Francois Duvalier would indigenize the Haitian clergy of the Catholic church.) For example, the 1805 imperial Constitution granted rights and authority to the Emperor to nominate and dismiss the clergy. In this case, the state restricted certain aspects of religious freedom and religious expression. Yet the Catholic Church, led by an overwhelmingly colonial French priests, was not respected in the country and thus unable to ensure the moral formation of the Haitian people. That would change, nonetheless, when the Haitian government, under the leadership of President Guillaume Fabre Nicolas Geffrard (806 –1878), in 1860, officially signed the Concordat with the Saint-Siege to assure the establishment of Catholicism as the state religion in Haiti. Interestingly, in the major urban cities and countryside, the Haitian people continued to practice their most dominant ancestral faith, the Vodou religion, tainted with the traditions, rituals, and practices of Roman Catholicism, under the direction of Haitian “houngans” (“priests”). This syncretic tradition would define the Haitian experience in religion for many years to come. It would also influence every religious tradition and faith organization in the country, including the three major religions in Haiti: Vodou, Christianity, and Islam. Also, this syncretic-metissage lifestyle would also shape the Haitian mind and impact Haiti’s intellectual traditions and literary productions.
5. Colonial Plantations and the Agricultural Sector: the Haitian state, under the leadership of Emperor Dessalines, confiscated colonial plantations, and most of the land became the property of the new state through the adoption of the leasing method, and Emperor Dessalines issued very strict regulations to compel the former slaves to return to cultivating the land. The state policed over both former colonial plantations and the country’s privately-land ownership—which will lead to the immature and anticipated death of the Emperor. The Emperor, driven by an ethics of postcolonial practice and a postcolonial worldview of activism and reparations, distributed land and former privately-owned property to the vulnerable peasants and the marginalized former slave population who were the main engine of (the blossoming of) European economy and Saint-Domingue’s capitalist strength.
6. The right to a Career and the right to Work: according to the imperial Constitution of 1805, every Haitian citizen should have a trade or craft; those who did not have a trade were forced to work the land. While the new Constitution affirmed the dignity of work and promotes that the Haitian citizen must have a career, it established the rapport between work and national progress, an important postcolonial push that would contribute to the country’s economic strength of this emerging postcolonial nation. This interesting relationship between the state, labor, and the individual suggests that Haitian citizens, although independent, are never autonomous and should never live for their own sake, but for the common good and human flourishing in society. Their individual success is also the success of the new nation-state, the first Black Republic in the Western World.

“’That’s My King’: On the Messianic Monarchical Meritocracy Theory and the Justification by Faith Theory”

“Preface”

I am not writing this essay as a specialist in New Testament Studies, but as a critical reader who is trying to make sense of the interesting rapport between the messianic kingship of Jesus and the justification by faith theory. I am a theologian by training. (Perhaps, there is an intellectual decalage between the two theories; we shall see in the subsequent analysis.) However, there was a time in my life, I wanted to become a New Testament scholar. After graduating from seminary, I was accepted into three doctoral programs: University of Aberdeen (Scotland), Bangor University (Wales), and the University of Cape Town (South Africa). I chose to enroll at Bangor University. Thus, I began writing a doctoral dissertation on the concept of “seeing God” in the Gospel of John to obtain a PhD in New Testament Studies, under the supervision of Prof. Catrin H. Williams. After a year and a half of intensive researching and writing, I dropped out of the program to pursue a PhD in Literary Studies at the University of Dallas at Texas. After obtaining the doctoral degree at UTD, I was tempted to go back to complete the degree in New Testament. Nonetheless, I did not pursue this former interest of mine because of the same reason I exited from the program: lack of financial stability. A few years later, I told myself even though I did not complete the PhD in NT, I should at least do a PhD in a related discipline. Thus, I decided to enroll in the PhD program in Systematic Theology and Ethics at the University of Pretoria (South Africa). This degree in theological ethics was close enough to my first love and passion: New Testament Studies. After I finished writing a robust doctoral thesis on an interesting topic in theological anthropology and ethics, I gained the PhD degree in the respective discipline. I celebrated this great accomplishment with my family and friends. Those days have gone; yet my interest in the academic discipline of Biblical Studies remain.

Truthfully, I never abandoned my passion in New Testament Studies. Even though I have written many academic books and articles about the rapport between history, ethics, religion, theology, race, anthropology, and literature. I always try to keep myself informed about the current state of the discipline of New Testament. I do that in various ways: listening to some good podcasts on the subject matter, reading blog posts and articles by experts on Biblical Studies, reading good books by influential writers in the field, and sometimes, I do attempt to engage virtually in meaningful conversations with my friends working in the disciplines of Biblical and Theological Studies.

“Rethinking the Kingship of Jesus and the Gospel of the King”

To fast forward the conversation, in the year 2011, I observed a breakthrough in my understanding of the relationship between the Reformers’ doctrine of justification by faith and the messianic identity and mission of Jesus, as explained in the four Gospels. (For example, N. T. Wright, in many publications, has attempted to bridge this historical and hermeneutical gap between the story of Israel, Jesus’s messiahship, and the Gospel, as could be observed in “Jesus and the Victory of God” (1996), “The New Testament and the People of God” (1992), and the two volumes by the same title: “Paul and the Faithfulness of God” (Parts I and II, published in 2013; Parts III and IV, published in 2013, respectively; other NT thinkers, prior to Wright, have also attempted to perform a reconstructive narrative of the Gospel message in the Gospels and in Paul. N.T. Wright, however, is/has been the most influential figure in contemporary NT scholarship. I did not fully grasp Wright’s 1992 and 1996’s publications and his attempt at historical reconstruction when I was in seminary. It was until after I graduated from seminary in 2006 that I went back to revisit his old claims and new perspectives with a new hermeneutical lens. I knew that my intellectual understanding of Israel’s history, Jesus’s Jewish identity, and the message of the Gospel was evolving and radically transforming. Yet I was not afraid to wear this new pair of glasses to improve my interpretive vision.)

Furthermore, with the publication of two seminal texts on the relationship between the essence of the Christian Gospel and its rapport to the kingship of Jesus—Scott McKnight’s “The King Jesus Gospel,” published in 2011, and N. T. Wright’s “How God Became King,” published in 2012 were game-changing and epoch-making books in the discipline—New Testament studies was set to take a revolutionary hermeneutical turn. Matthew Bates, continuing in the same line of reasoning with Wright and McKnight, was set to bring greater clarity and precision on these matters of great intellectual and hermeneutical concerns, with the publication of two controversial and groundbreaking books: “Salvation by Allegiance Alone: Rethinking Faith, Works, and the Gospel of Jesus the King” (2017), and “Gospel Allegiance: What Faith in Jesus Misses for Salvation in Christ” (2019).

As a result, Pastor Greg Gilbert, a fierce critic among many, in various online essays (see also, (for example, “What is the Gospel?” “Who Is Jesus?), has expressed his own concerns about this “interpretive turn” in contemporary New Testament Studies as well as in contemporary American evangelicalism. He himself is not a New Testament scholar; however, he is a theologian worth reading to for many great reasons. He and others have remarked that this emerging movement is not only challenging centuries of New Testament scholarship; this fresh and radical reading of the Christian salvation and Israel’s story is reversing the Reformers’ justification by faith theory with an alternative concentration on the messianic monarchism of Jesus, what we might call the messianic monarchism theory. Wright, McKnight, and Bates have argued that the Gospel is about paying allegiance to King Jesus, and justification by faith is among the many effects of the Gospel; by contrast, Gilbert gives primacy to the doctrine of justification by faith, the old Reformers’ Gospel theory. For him, the thesis “Jesus is King” is not the Gospel proclaimed by Paul, the Apostles, or the Protestant Reformers. The trinity (Wright, McKnight, and Gates) of the “Jesus is King” theory is indeed shifting the discourse on the subject matter, declaring that the Gospel is about the non-negotiable allegiance to King Jesus against the Reformers’ dictum that the Gospel is about “justification by faith alone.” While the former emphasizes a Christocentric-messianic monarchy Gospel, the latter prioritizes a pistis-centered Gospel. In a recent blog post, Michael Bird helpfully assesses both perspectives on the subject matter.

“The Personal Inquiry: Questions about the King Jesus Gospel”

Moreover, because of my intellectual curiosity, on a recent post written by Bates, I attempted to get some clarity on the subject matter by asking a threefold question:

1. Did Jesus “become” King in order to offer salvation to all who would believe in his name and pay allegiance to him as King and Redeemer?
2. Did Jesus “the Christ” receive kingship because he makes available salvation to all who would believe in him as “the Christ”–not as “the King”?
3. Could it be that the Messiah, even before his enthronement as King upon his exaltation to heaven, preexisted both as the King-Redeemer/Savior-King, and thus eventually fulfilled the dual but inseparable function as King and Savior?

Because I did not get a response for my questions, I decided to do the research myself and answer my own questions (by any means, am I writing as a specialist in New Testament Studies) in the subsequent paragraph below.

I suppose to call Jesus the “King of Israel” would have made some sense to the people of Jesus’ s day because the Jewish people were waiting for a King to function as a political leader and to deliver them from Roman imperialism and colonial oppression (avant la lettre). Jewish contemporaries of Jesus were thinking politically when they called “Jesus the King of the Jews.” By doing so, they expressed a strong political motivation in their resistance toward the Empire and colonial domination. After all, their ancestors have been historical victims of imperial violence and terror– including the Egyptian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek Empires, etc. For Jesus’ s contemporaries, to be a king was to assume a political position and governance. The political urgency of the day in Jesus’s time made his activities very suspicious and politically driven—as understood by various religious sects and political groups of the day. A Messiah, who was not a political leader, was not cool and even disappointing for many “colonial Jews” and the Jewish “diasporic populations.”

Suppose the Messiah was both a King (political) and spiritual leader (religion), would that be understood as a decalage? Can you have a Messiah-King, not a Messiah-Spiritual Reformer, or vice versa? Was it necessary for the Messiah to assume both a political and religious function concurrently? In our Western mindset, these are some of the apparent difficulties the New Testament writers attempted to reconcile in their writings–especially the four Gospels and Paul’s Letters. For the Western mind, it is a hard task to undergo; by contrast, for the Jewish mind, the Messiah-King was just a common religious and political tradition and a much-anticipated reality for the Jews in Jesus’ s day.

Traditionally, it is not really a difficulty when we examine the culture, customs, and the mindset of the people of the Ancient Near East. For the most part, it was expected for the appointed king to be the spiritual leader of his people, even in the so-called “pagan nations.” Yet a spiritual leader was not always a king. Such connecting role was anticipated by the people, and the one who will be enthroned as king understood that his dual function as king and spiritual leader was inseparable (For several centuries in the West, some Western kings played both parallel roles. This is also a common practice in African traditional culture. African traditional culture is closer to the culture and practices of the Bible as compared to Western cultural practices and political governance) The King-Spiritual leader was a common practice and parallel function in the Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations. Both the Jews and Romans as well as their surrounding countries and distant neighbors of Jesus’s times shared this mutual mindset and custom. Hence, Jesus’s disciples and followers, as well as the religious and political leaders, who were appointed by the Roman Empire, anticipated the Jewish Messiah to be a political leader (King) and religious figure (i.e. reformer, savior, redeemer, deliverer). This attitude is not a practical problem in the Gospel narratives and other writings of the New Testament, especially in Paul’s Letters.

Nonetheless, a revolution of the mind would occur in the imagination of the New Testament’s writers. What did exactly happen? Two things happened that radicalized their understanding of the person and works of Jesus, and the rapport between religion and politics in their society.

The first issue had to do with Jesus’s realization of the physical kingdom of Israel in his lifetime. The second matter had to do Jesus’s ostensible failure to inaugurate the physical kingdom of Israel under the current rule of the Roman Empire. Both phenomena would change the New Testament writers’ understanding, especially the twelve disciples, of the messianic mission of Jesus and the kingdom of God Jesus proclaimed, through his preaching and teaching, came to inaugurate in the time of imperial domination.

Let us now go to the first point, as noted above. Jesus’s disciples and those who were observing closely his activities believed there was a possibility that Jesus would be the one to restore the kingdom of Israel; in other words, he would become the anticipated Jewish King and the new spiritual reformer of both colonial and diasporic Jews. They cultivated this imminent hope because of the persuasive and attractive message of the impending kingdom and political leadership Jesus himself announced. One of the reasons many Jews became devoted followers and disciples of Jesus lied in Jesus’s message of hope and restoration connected with the imminent kingdom of God that will challenge and even reverse the present Roman imperial rule—inaugurating a new and alternative kingly leadership and ultimately the political emancipation of the colonial, exiled, and diasporic Jews. Paradoxically, the people anticipated that through the Messiah, the God of Israel will become King again (See Luke 1:46-55, 68-80; 2:22-38), and this would happen in their lifetime.

“The Great Shock”

Unfortunately, the disciples of Jesus would experience a great shock when they came to understand that the kingdom of Israel was not going to be inaugurated in Jesus’s lifetime. This realization came into fruition when Jesus was eventually arrested by the agents of the Empire, put to trial by the officials of the Empire, declared guilty— for crimes connected with “kingship claims” (associated with Roman politics) and “blasphemy” (associated with the Jewish religion)—by the political representatives of the Empire, and ultimately was crucified by the soldiers of the Empire. The warranted violations were linked to religion and politics. The execution of Jesus was a cultural and political buzz in the Roman empire.

In addition, the death of Jesus would create tremendous mental doubt, psychological reorientation, and internal conflict among his committed followers because Jesus did not become king and more importantly, the King of Israel, as anticipated and promised. Yet the bodily resurrection of Jesus, as reported in the Gospels, would generate a new psychology and theological orientation about the correlation between the spiritual leadership (messianic) and the nature of the kingdom (political) Jesus proclaimed in his pre-resurrection teachings. These historical reports can be found in the writings of the New Testament (especially in Paul’s letters, written in the 50s, then in the four Gospels, written from the 60s to 90s) written many years after the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Now, let us turn to the second point, as previously mentioned. Because Jesus failed to inaugurate the physical kingdom of Israel at the time the Romans were ruling, those who wrote the books of the New Testament would begin to reframe their previous understanding of the kingdom Jesus announced during his pre-resurrection life. The post-resurrection New Testament writings attempted to reconcile two matters of great importance in Jewish history and to a larger extent in human history, chiefly Jesus’s role as Savior-King and Jesus’s function as Political Leader and Religious Reformer. Observably, first, the language of the Texts changed, from Jesus being the spiritual leader and reformer (pre-resurrection title) to its current status as “Savior of the world” (post-resurrection title), not just the Savior of the Jewish people. The rhetoric of the Texts also changed, from Jesus being the King of Israel (or “King of the Jesus” in the Gospel of John, for example: a pre-resurrection title) to Jesus the cosmic King (also, a post-resurrection title).

To put it another way, the New Testament writers theologically reconceptualized the function of the post-resurrection Jesus as a cosmic (spiritual and political) leader and hero encompassing both realms: the natural world and the supernatural world. By virtue of his resurrection that demonstrates his power over the sphere of the dead and victory over sin and darkness ( 1 Corinthians 15; Ephesians 1:15-23; 2:1-10; 3:1-13), Jesus is presented as the Cosmic Savior-Redeemer of all people (Romans 1:1-6; Colossians 1:1-23, 2:1-15; Hebrews 1). (In the most practical way, they did not, however, inform us about the implication of the risen Christ for life under the Roman empire since the Jews and followers of Jesus still did not have a physical kingdom—even after the resurrection of Jesus the Messiah. The Kingdom of Israel was not physically restored in the immediate post-resurrection times.) How did then the New Testament writers rethink the kingship of Jesus?

Let us consider six different proposals. First, they reinterpreted the nature and content of the kingdom Jesus announced in several ways (keep in mind the political kingdom was not realized in Jesus’s time. Jesus died and was translated into heaven. His early death deferred the practical fulfillment of the physical kingdom under the Roman rule, a watershed moment that has strengthened the Roman Empire and prolonged Jewish deliverance from Roman oppression and colonization.). (1) The writers of the New Testament, both eyewitness disciples and the friends of followers of Jesus, rethought about the Kingdom of God as an apocalyptic future event. They interpreted that Jesus will inaugurate an earthly kingdom when he returns on earth for a second time; (2) They construed the kingdom of God spatially and metaphysically. Jesus is the cosmic King over both the physical and metaphysical world or space; (3) They gave a spiritual meaning to the sermons and preaching, which they himself wrote, reported, and interpreted, of Jesus, associated with the nature and workings of the kingdom; (4) They viewed the kingdom in two ways: a physical kingdom and a non-physical kingdom; (5) They understood both the resurrection and ascension of Jesus as one inseparable epic event in Israel’s history, leading to the ensuing divine enthronement of Jesus as the true promised (divine) Messiah-King of Israel; and (6) They reinterpreted the kingship of Jesus in light of their understanding of the kingship of Yahweh, as narrated in the Hebrew Scriptures, the Israel’s God, whom they claimed share a divine identity and monarchical kingdom with Jesus “The Christ.”

Furthermore, these New Testament imaginations, articulations, and claims (see # 1-6) are not devoid of what the Hebrew Scriptures assert about the Messiah, his identity, and mission. In other words, the New Testament writers have gotten a better understanding of Jesus and the kingdom he boasted about not simply from what Jesus has taught and done in his pre-resurrection experience; in the post-resurrection moments as they were writing their respective books and letters and continuing the works of Jesus in various geo-political locations, they began to read the life and mission of Jesus backwards through the lens of the Hebrew Scriptures (see Richard Hays, “Reading Backwards: Figural Christology and the Fourfold Gospel Witness,” and “Reading Scripture in Light of the Resurrection”) to think afresh about his true identity and the precise workings of Israel’s kingdom. That was such an intellectual and spiritual exercise! In a nutshell, the post-resurrection New Testament writings clearly indicate the followers of Jesus overwhelmingly anticipated the future coming of the King of Israel who will restore the physical kingdom of Israel in the world. Yet the scope of this anticipated kingdom is eschatological and apocalyptic.

“The King Jesus Gospel Makes Sense
or Jesus is King is Good News for all”

After articulating these various perspectives or viewpoints at this point in our conversation, let us now respond directly to the previous questions that drove this intellectual impulse or inquiry:

1) Did Jesus “become” King in order to offer salvation to all who would believe in his name and pay allegiance to him as King and Redeemer? In other words, did he receive the title “King” because of the salvific benefits he provided through his death and resurrection? In this perspective, salvation is not separated from his kingship; they must be viewed or studied in relation or connection to each other;

Response: It seems to me the New Testament writers do not understand the salvation Jesus offers as a phenomenon that is dependent exclusively upon his enthronement as King or Messiah-King. Thus, one might say that the title “King” is not the result (or contingent upon) of the salvific advantages of the Messiah’s death and resurrection. The Messiah did not die in order to become King or a monarch. The Messiah died sacrificially to offer universal salvation and for the glory of God. In this case, it is salvation without kingship. Jesus (The Christ) did not have to become a king to make salvation available and/or possible to all people.

2) Did Jesus “the Christ” receive kingship because he makes available salvation to all who would believe in him as “the Christ”–not as “the King”? From this viewpoint, kingship is only a reward because of the salvation the Messiah offers to humanity; hence, kingship is not necessarily connected to salvation or vice versa;

Response: Through a careful reading of Apostle Paul’s thought (also, the disciples’ sermons in Acts, especially Peter’s) on the subject matter, the Messiah was resurrected (the Gospels) and thus enthroned (i.e. Matthew, Acts, Ephesians, Romans, Hebrews) as King by virtue of the work he has accomplished through his substitutionary death and atonement. (the Ancient Near Eastern literature is full of folktales and myths that celebrate the hero-king who dies to save his people from their enemy and oppression; this is also a common tradition in African traditional culture. This tradition is almost absent in modern Western societies.) In this perspective, the enthronement of Jesus the Christ as King (both as Israel’s king and world’s king) is the causal effect of his triumphal resurrection. The enthronement or kingship here is a reward-based (messianic) merit, what we might phrase “messianic meritocracy” or “monarchical meritocracy” (even the “messianic monarchical meritocracy” theory). In this sense, the Messiah became King. Here, salvation is connected to messiahship and kingdom; the resurrection of Jesus is a bold testimony of his messianic mission joined together with his kingly identity (Luke 1:32–33). Thus, those who believe in his name must profess him both as King and Messiah. In this angle, the Gospel is understood as exclusive allegiance to Jesus the King by virtue of genuine saving faith in the King who delivers. Accordingly, Jesus the King is really the good news of the Gospel. The gospel cannot be anything else but the gospel of King Jesus, which brings us to a parallel claim: kingship is necessarily connected to King Jesus’s salvation, and correspondingly salvation is linked to King Jesus’s royal identity. In sum, salvation belongs to the King, and the kingdom is the possession of the messianic King. This understanding requires an imperative allegiance to King Jesus from those who deliberately confess his kingship and intentionally participate in his Gospel.

3) Could it be that the Messiah, even before his enthronement as King upon his exaltation to heaven, preexisted both as the King-Redeemer/Savior-King, and thus eventually fulfilled the dual but inseparable function as King and Savior?

Response: At the very beginning of this conversation, we mentioned that in the Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations, political leadership in the form of kingship, for example, was linked to spiritual leadership. It is important to reiterate that whenever we note the word “king,” we are referring to a political position and we are entering into the realm of politics, royalty, or monarchy. Kingship has to do with providing leadership and domination, and spiritual orientation and guidance (see 1 and 2 Kings, and 1 and 2 Chronicles; a good book on the subject, which I really enjoyed reading, is Joshua Jipp’s Christ is King: Paul’s Royal Ideology”). In the Hebrew Scriptures, especially in the (post-) exilic literature, the prophets announced the coming of Israel’s Deliverer, whose dual role was exclusively political and spiritual (i.e. Daniel 10; Isaiah 7 and 9). This political leader is a preexistent King who will come as Messiah ( as observed in both Daniel and Isaiah; a powerful work that attempts to establish connections and parallels between the writings of the Hebrew Bible and the writings of the New Testament is “The Preexistent Son: Recovering the Christologies of Matthew, Mark, and Luke” by Simon J. Gathercole) to deliver the people of God from their sins (Matthew 1:21-23, 2:1-23; Luke 1:26-33) and political oppression. Accordingly, the preexistent King-Redeemer is also the Savior-King who fulfilled the dual and inseparable function as King, Redeemer, and Savior. Because the Messiah is King, he has the power to restore political order; he is against political totalitarianism and terrorism and will one day effect universal political peace and recreate the world anew. What interesting is that the kingship of Jesus the Christ is both a political and spiritual position in the same way his messiahship entails both spiritual and political deliverance from any form of political subjugation and spiritual bankruptcy. Perhaps, we should use term divine monarchical messianism to describe this joint Christocentric leadership and governance.

“Conclusion in Six Statements”

1. The various quests for the historical Jesus (the original quest for the historical Jesus began in 1906 with the monumental work, “The Quest of the Historical Jesus” of Albert Schweitzer) contributed to the westernization of Jesus and the undermining of his Jewishness (Immanuel Kant was probably the first Western thinker to initiate this intellectual decentering of Jesus’s Jewishness; see J Kameron Carter, “Race: A Theological Account” for a critical analysis of Kant’s western ideological reading of Jesus’s life and thought). The more Jesus is read from a Western lens by neglecting his Middle-Eastern background, the further the interpreter will be removed from the customs and traditions that shaped his identity, work, and his message. This will also impact one’s understanding of the Gospel and its relationship with kingship.
2. The personal salvation theory (i.e. individual justification by faith or personal salvation) in modern Evangelicalism has been heavily influenced by modernity’s stress on the rights of the individual and the celebration of the individual’s success or achievement. This philosophy works effectively with the American dream ideology, which emphasizes the mobility and triumph of the individual in society. Modern American evangelicals, however, have theologized the philosophy of Western individualism into the personal salvation theory. Post-modernity’s accent on the freedom of the individual is another philosophical tradition in the West that undermines exclusive allegiance to King Jesus in contemporary (American) evangelicalism and churches. This theory has caused a great intellectual damage in contemporary biblical and theological hermeneutics as well as a theological decalage in evangelization and conversion stories in our churches. Furthermore, it undermines the urgent summon to biblical discipleship inseparable from the exclusive allegiance and commitment to King Jesus.
3. The declaration “Jesus is King” creates a psychological distance between the biblical world and the western world, the biblical mindset and the western mindset. The political system and revolution, initiated in the so-called period of “High Enlightenment” and the “Age of Reason” in Western societies, resulted in the abandonment of the monarchial rule for the democratic governance. Political ideologies, articulated during that era in the writings of Western political scientists and philosophers, would substantially influence the King Jesus Gospel, particularly in the area of textual interpretation pertaining to the essence of the Gospel and the nature of the Messiah’s monarchical rule (1 Corinthians 15). As a result, the new attitude toward the democratic order in rejection of the monarchical system would undermine the significant correlation between the identity of Jesus as a monarch and justification by faith alone—a theological confession that was already promoted by the Protestant Reformers in the sixteenth century. Western biblical scholars and theologians did not want to confront Jesus the Monarch-King because of their bad experience with Western monarchs and kings. Thus, their political conviction would influence not only their theological conviction, more importantly, the true essence of the Gospel of King Jesus, rested in the complete allegiance to him as King. The great decalage lied, from the Middle to High Modernity periods, in the realm of the political and the sphere of the theological, political theory and theological hermeneutics.
4. Hence, it has become a mental convenience for modern Christian interpreters to connect the personal salvation to justification by faith then to link the gospel of salvation to the kingship of Jesus. To say “Jesus is the King” might intimidate the American and the European Christian whose current political system prioritizes representative or liberal democracy not perpetual monarchy. In this sense, politically speaking, the idea of the kingship of Jesus is not good news for the modern American or the Western person because Jesus’s monarchical rule not only calls for the reversal of the current political order and the world-order systems. This bold thesis (“Jesus is the King”) makes a clarion call to declare the kingship of Jesus (which is the essence of the Gospel story) expressed in personal and ecclesiastical allegiance and faithful commitment to king Jesus.
5. Arguably, the Gospel is intimately connected to the Kingship of Jesus and the exclusive allegiance that Jesus is King, resulting in forgiveness of and deliverance from sins and justification by faith. In other words, forgiveness, deliverance, justification, and peace with God among the other grand benefits of the Gospel are the ensuing effects of the King Jesus Gospel. Justification by faith alone does not lead to salvation in Jesus; rather, it is allegiance to Jesus as King and Savior or Savior-King, resulting in justification—the effect of the Christocentric allegiance—that delivers. The cost of biblical discipleship requires the complete abandonment of one’s self and former allegiances to cling to and follow King Jesus as Master. Further, in the Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations, it was customary for the king of the nation to demand total allegiance to him and that allegiance was exclusive and non-negotiable (See the book of Daniel for King Nebuchadnezzar’s inclusive request for faithful loyalty to him, as well as the book of Exodus, in which King Pharaoh’s nonnegotiable demand of allegiance from both the Egyptians and the Israelite’s slave population is established; the books of Kings and Chronicles are full of examples in which the kings insisted on comprehensive allegiance from the people they ruled.).
6. The proclamation “Jesus Is King” is unquestionably the good news of the Gospel of the King. It is the only gospel that liberates, sanctifies, and justifies; it is the Gospel of the King that challenges both the spiritual and politic order of modernity and post-modernity.

I close this essay with this moving and theological prayer entitled “That’s My King,” which Rev. Dr. Shadrack Meshach Lockridge (1913-2000) delivered in 1976:

My King was born King.
The Bible says He’s a Seven Way King.
He’s the King of the Jews — that’s a racial King.
He’s the King of Israel — that’s a national King.
He’s the King of righteousness.
He’s the King of the ages.
He’s the King of Heaven.
He’s the King of glory.
He’s the King of kings
and He is the Lord of lords.
Now that’s my King. Well I wonder if you know Him.

Do you know Him?
Don’t try to mislead me.
Do you know my King?
David said the Heavens declare the glory of God,
and the firmament showeth His handiwork.
My King is the only one whom there are no means of measure can define His limitless love.
No far seeing telescope can bring into visibility the coastline of His shoreless supplies.

No barriers can hinder Him from pouring out His blessing.
Well, well,
He’s enduringly strong.
He’s entirely sincere.
He’s eternally steadfast.
He’s immortally graceful.
He’s imperially powerful.
He’s impartially merciful.
That’s my King.

He’s God’s Son.
He’s the sinner’s savior.
He’s the centerpiece of civilization.
He stands alone in Himself.
He’s august.
He’s unique.
He’s unparalleled.
He’s unprecedented.
He’s supreme.
He’s pre-eminent.

Well, He’s the loftiest idea in literature.
He’s the highest personality in philosophy.
He’s the supreme problem in higher criticism.
He’s the fundamental doctrine of true theology.
He’s the cardinal necessity of spiritual religion.
That’s my King.

He’s the miracle of the age.
He’s the superlative of everything good that you choose to call Him.
Well, He’s the only one able to supply all of our needs simultaneously.

He supplies strength for the weak.
He’s available for the tempted and the tried.
He sympathizes and He saves.
He’s strong God and He guides.
He heals the sick.
He cleanses the lepers.
He forgives sinners.
He discharges debtors.
He delivers the captives.
He defends the feeble.
He blesses the young.
He serves the unfortunate.
He regards the aged.
He rewards the diligent and He beautifies the meek.

Do you know Him?
Well, my King is a King of knowledge.
He’s the wellspring of wisdom.
He’s the doorway of deliverance.
He’s the pathway of peace.
He’s the roadway of righteousness.
He’s the highway of holiness.
He’s the gateway of glory.
He’s the Master of the mighty.
He’s the Captain of the conquerors.
He’s the Head of the heroes.
He’s the Leader of the legislators.
He’s the Overseer of the overcomers.
He’s the Governor of governors.
He’s the Prince of princes.
He’s the King of kings and He’s the Lord of lords.
That’s my King. Yeah. Yeah.
That’s my King. My King, yeah.

His office is manifold.
His promise is sure.
His light is matchless.
His goodness is limitless.
His mercy is everlasting.
His love never changes.
His word is enough.
His grace is sufficient.
His reign is righteous.
His yoke is easy and His burden is light.

Well. I wish I could describe Him to you,
but He’s indescribable.
He’s indescribable. Yeah!
He’s incomprehensible.
He’s invincible.
He’s irresistible.
I’m trying to tell you,
the heavens of heavens cannot contain Him,
let alone a man explain Him.
You can’t get Him out of your mind.
You can’t get Him off of your hand.
You can’t outlive Him and you can’t live without Him.
Well, Pharisees couldn’t stand Him,
but they found out they couldn’t stop Him.
Pilate couldn’t find any fault in Him.
The witnesses couldn’t get their testimonies to agree.
Herod couldn’t kill Him.
Death couldn’t handle Him and the grave couldn’t hold Him.
That’s my King. Yeah!
He always has been and He always will be.
I’m talking about He had no predecessor
and He’ll have no successor.
There was nobody before Him
and there’ll be nobody after Him.
You can’t impeach Him
and He’s not gonna resign.
That’s my King! That’s my King!
Thine, Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory.

Well, all the power belongs to my King.
We’re around here talking about black power and white power and green power,
but it’s God’s power. Thine is the power.
Yeah.
And the glory.
We try to get prestige and honor and glory for ourselves,
but the glory is all His. Yes.
Thine is the Kingdom
and the power and the glory,
forever and ever
and ever
and ever.
How long is that?
And ever and ever and ever and ever.
And when you get through with all of the forevers,
then, Amen.”

I was pleased to read an honest and engaging review of the two fantastic books on Haitian Vodou that my dear friend Dr. Nixon Shaba-lom Cleophat and I coedited:

“Celucien L. Joseph & Nixon S. Cleophat (eds.), Vodou in Haitian Memory: The Idea and Representation of Vodou in Hatian Imagination. Lanham MD: Lexington Books, 2016. xx + 228 pp. (Cloth US$ 90.00) — Celucien L. Joseph & Nixon S. Cleophat (eds.), Vodou in the Haitian Experience: A Black Atlantic Perspective. Lanham MD: Lexington Books, 2016. xii + 276 pp. (Cloth US$ 95.00)” by Alessandra Benedicty (Thank you, Dr. Benedicty!)

***Dr. Alessandra Benedicty-Kokken has written perhaps the most theoretical and sophisticated work on Haitian Vodou in the past two years, with a special focus on the experience of trance or spirit possession in Vodou:

“Spirit Possession in French, Haitian, and Vodou Thought: An Intellectual History” (Lexington Books (November 12, 2014).

Click on the link below to read the review:

https://brill.com/view/journals/nwig/91/3-4/article-p343_38.xml?crawler=true&mimetype=application%2Fpdf%3B343