A Word for the Caveman

Dear Eugene,

We could imagine when a caveman was chased by a T-Rex, the nature man would naturally cry for help.

His shriek would have been a plead no less earnest than ours when we lost control of our vehicle to an evil sheet of ice.  If after years of high education we could in our final moment at least wrap our spinning head around the physics of skating in a ball of metal into our death, the caveman wouldn't have the luxury of comparable enlightenment to come to terms with his demise under the chicken-feet of a leviathan.

Who was the caveman crying to?  In whose name was his prayer going to be answered, if at all?  And if he could not even utter an intelligible syllable comprehensible to himself, who was going to speak on his behalf when he was most in need to be spoken for?

Now these are the questions I would ask a Christian if I am not one.

Not too long ago a pastor tried to warn me about N. T. Wright by saying he's cool with the dude and all, but make sure I know "justification by faith is the hill on which we die."

I so wanted to tell him, No, that ain't Jesus' Golgotha, and I ain't dying there either.  Jesus didn't go to hell and back for a doctrine, and I find no energy and creative imagination in living for one.  Such monothematic discourse that's answerable to only a single point of judgement is what Rowan Williams called a theology that lacks "integrity."

In 1522, Luther wrote in the preface of his German translation of the New Testament that the Epistle of James "is really a right strawy epistle, compared to these others (e.g. Romans, Galatians, Ephesians)," and his reasoning was that James "has nothing of the nature of the gospel about it."  Luther, of course, famously made an attempt to remove the book of James (and a few others that didn't fit his theology) from his canon.

Scary what a monothematic discourse can do, reducing the glorious complexity of life into one point to grasp, one tune to play, one doctrine to "die" for.  And for many (not Luther, by the way), one excuse to stay put.

How did Peter, Paul and Mary make sense of Jesus before Luther crashed into the scene (only 500 years ago) with his succinct formulation, however brilliant, even magnificent?  Who cares about that when you are at the right side of history?  How convenient it is for me that Luther risked everything for a correct doctrinal position so that I can justify having faith in my faith!  How unlucky it was for the caveman to know none of my blessed assurance in my universally useful orthodoxy!

Again, who was the caveman crying to?  In whose name did he expect his dying plead to be answered, for the joy and hope of meeting another sunrise to again break through, for his rapidly-fading trust in whatever benefactor to be preserved, even restored, for a reason to "believe"?  By what Word is his wretched humanity going to be spoken for?

Suppose I am not a Christian but I read the Bible; I would gather from what I read the answer to all these caveman questions is Jesus.

And it is up to a Christian to tell me why this is not the most ridiculous proposition, like, ever.

Yours, Alex