The Notebooks of Schubert Ogden

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                                                                                   Who is Jesus Christ?

Is Jesus the example, to follow which constitutes the right form of discipleship of Christ?

Is he the social reformer, who perished in trying to change the situation and whose work we, as his followers, are to bring to a more successful outcome?

Did he act as the representative of the absent or dead God, in such a way that, like him, we, too, as his followers, are all to become representatives of God and play God for others?

Is he the man of great hope, whose hope we, as his disciples, are to make our own and, so far as possible, fulfill?

Is he risen in us as his disciples and in all who live like him?

Is he the pioneer of the exodus through which we, as his disciples, have to break out from all fixed relations?

Is he the man from Nazareth who gives out helps to live a happy life?

                                                                                                       Or:

Is Jesus "the Lord," so that "discipleship" means believing in him?

Is his death a matter of protest and failure, or is it, rather, the act of salvation and fulfillment? And is the point of his death to summon others to bring his life to a better end, or is it, rather, to invite us to be crucified with him?

Is God present and alive in him, so that we stand before him as those who receive, knowing full well that we can never play God for one another?

Is he himself one who hopes or, rather, the ground of our hope?

Is he really risen and alive in us, or in the word that attests him as the life "extra nos"?

Does he break out into the future, or does the future of God come to us in him?

Does he give out helps to live, or is he himself the life?

(after Walter Schmithals)

n.d.

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