Quote of the Day

Why do Christians need to believe in the Incarnation? "The point of incarnation language," the Catholic theologian Roger Haight writes, "is that Jesus is one of us, that what occurred in Jesus is the destiny of human existence itself: et homo factus est. Jesus is a statement, God's statement, about humanity as such." Humanity is the presence of God. The presence of God, therefore, lies in what is ordinary. Not in supernatural marvels. Not in a superman with whom we have nothing actual in common. Not in saints. Not in a once-only age of miracles long ago. Not first in doctrine, scholarship, or theology – but in life. Doctrine, scholarship, and theology are essential as modes of opening up that life and its meanings, and there is no separating the life of Jesus from interpretations of it. The interpretations must always be examined, and criticized.

. . . Whatever sort of God Jesus is understood to be, it must be the God who is like humans, not different. If that seems impossible, then what we think of God – and of humans – must change.

– James Carroll
Excerpted from Christ Actually: The Son of God for a Secular Age
Viking Book, 2014

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Why Jesus in My Man
• A God With Whom It is Possible to Connect
• Jesus: The Revelation of Oneness
• To Believe in Jesus
• Jesus: Path-blazer of Radical Transformation
• James Carroll on Catholic Understandings of Truth

Recommended Off-site Links:
Jesus and the Modern Man – James Carroll (The New York Times, November 7, 2014).
A Review of Christ Actually – Kirkus Reviews (November 18, 2014).