Jesus, Justice, and the Reign of God

William Herzog is the author of Jesus, justice, and the reign of God (2000).

Some theologians describe Jesus' ministry as three-fold: prophet, priest and king.  Most Western theologians highlight the priestly ministry---cross and resurrection; most Western theologians minimize the equally important prophetic ministry.  Herzog endeavors to correct this mistake; he ties the prophetic to justice and the kingdom of God.

A biblical prophet is the bearer of truth; mostly a forth teller, sometimes a fore teller.  The biblical prophet is a bearer of both good news and bad news.  The bad news: if a people does not repent of their idolatry, ethnocentrism and oppression, then God's judgment will fall upon them.  The good news: if a people does repent and then do justice, the shalom of the kingdom will be yours.

In the NT, the religio-politico-economic elite refused to repent; therefore, God used the Romans to destroy the sacred Temple.

Half of Herzog's book is a discussion of the theological garbage and historical trivia regarding the fruitless quest for the historical Jesus.  Much of this Enlightenment deism is "an unhistorical quest for an apolitical Jesus."  Herzog doesn't believe this garbage/trivia, but as a scholar, he feels compelled to discuss it.  Once the reader moves beyond this garbage, a person finds a solid discussion of the NT teaching on both oppression and justice---a rarity in NT scholarship.

Herzog sees the Temple as the key social institution that had become a den of robbers, a religiously legitimated system of oppression.  He sees Jesus as a "prophet of justice of the reign [kingdom] of God."  Would that Herzog had devoted this entire book to a broader and deeper discussion of oppression and justice.  Then he could have fully rejusticized the NT gospel.

Next, some nuggets on NT oppression.

The misuse of the Torah "by the Jerusalem [religio-politico-economic] elite to justify their oppression of the [despised] people of the land."  "the people of Galilee who were being increasingly squeezed by [Roman] colonial domination and internal [Jewish elite] exploitation."  "villagers of Galilee, who were increasingly separated from their land and traditions by an alien network of Roman domination, Herodian exploitation, and temple control."

On Palestine:

"Wealth is based on land and the control of the land.  Typically composed of no more than 1 to 2 percent of the population, the ruling class controlled the vast majority of the rest of their society.  "the high-priestly families with their lay collaborators, controlled the temple and its institutions, notably the Sanhedrin [religio-political body] and the temple treasury [like Wall Street, Federal Reserve and the U.S. treasury combined]."  "The relationship between the [rich] aristocrat and the [poor] peasant was predatory, oppressive, and exploitative, a fact that required ideological concealment."

The peasant:  "who lives at the subsistence level, barely able to survive from one planting season to the next, in perpetual debt, at the point when the failure to pay off a loan could spell financial ruin."

Approximately two chapters are devoted to the Temple, the key socioeconomic institution of Judaism, which as a den of robbers, stood in the way of the justice of the kingdom of God.  Why did Jesus cleanse the Temple?  Because it was commercialized, needed to be purified, needed a place for Gentiles to worship, the corrupting role of the treasury, the apex of a system of exploitation; Jeremiah seven describes a similar misuse of the Temple.

My summary and application of Herzog's ideas:

In the OT, Israel truly was God's chosen people; the Torah really was God's divine revelation; the Temple was God's holy place.  Despite many claims to the contrary, America was/is not God's chosen nation; chosenness is historical myth.  The Bible Belt preached and practiced only half the gospel; the ignored the kingdom of God as justice half.  The American church was syncretistic, combining the Christian trinity and the American trinity.

The divine calling:  Israel as God's chosen people------------Torah------------Temple
The demonic corruption:  from servant to superior-----------from justice---- - -from Holy to hellish
                                                                                               to oppression

American  ideology:  "Christian nation"------------"Bible Belt"------------"American church"
Brutal Reality:        from superior to superior--------ethnocentrism--------combined Trinity and
                                                                                   and oppression         and American trinity
Biblical Revolution:   Spirit and Kingdom----------Jubilee justice---------Christian community
                                                                                                                    Development

Alistair Young's book, Environment, Economics, and Christian Ethics:  A summary statement:  Economic forces, such as capitalism, make for domination, devastation and only sometimes development; I would add a fourth 'd'---debt or debt slavery.  This concise statement describes both the Palestinian economy and Haiti's 500 year history of oppression.

Richard Wood and Brad Fulton, A Shared Future;  "three demons bedeviling American society:  unparalleled economic inequality, [public] policy paralysis, and [endless] racial inequality."