Weak Theology

“I am getting very anxious about what is happening to Jesus.” It was strange to hear this statement spoken in a group of spiritual innovators working at the edges of religious traditions. This group positions their work in response to the spiritual longings arising in non-traditional spaces and religiously pluralistic spaces. But this statement reminded us of the moment we are in, in which the Christ professed by Christian nationalism is on full display with crushing force. Jesus is being claimed by Christian nationalists for economic and political gain. He is being claimed as the sovereign lord sanctioning the war in Iran.[1] His name is invoked in prayers on the National Mall to bless a golden statue of the president. 

During my life, I have been introduced to many Jesuses. I was first introduced to Jesus as a tender friend, one who would do anything for me, loving me so much that he was willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for my sins. My seminary Jesus was radical. He was the liberating Jesus who stood in solidarity with those on the margins. He was a subject of the state who was executed on the cross because corrupt powers put him there. 

My childhood Jesus was presented to me as apolitical. He loved the little children of the world. He was a global Jesus who came to bring good news for everyone. I never remember the adults of my childhood talking politics at all, but the seeds of this nationalistic Jesus were there. The attachment of evangelicals to Israel was strong and protection of the “Holy Land” was vital to our salvation. When I returned to the bible camp of my youth fifteen years ago, the unpaved roads named after biblical sites were lined with small American flags. Suddenly, everyone loved Jesus and this country. The two were inseparable. And Jesus was no longer a humble figure, but a bold crusading figure who put nation first. 

As a seminary professor, I ask students to examine the way the story of Jesus was narrated to them. How did they come to know themselves, and their community, in relationship to Jesus? Some are anxious that I will take away their Jesus. Some have left Jesus behind. I ask them: What does your Jesus Christ do? What does he turn you to see and not to see? 

Rev. Howard Thurman, in his day, was very anxious about what was happening to Jesus. In his most recognized work, Jesus and the Disinheritance, he distances himself from Jesus Christ preached in Christian churches. Jesus is made into an object of worship by Christians, and it belies his teachings. In contrast, the Jesus of the gospels is, for Thurman, a subject of history. He is a Palestinian Jew who embodies the conditions of the disinherited. He is subject to the vicissitudes of life. In Thurman’s reading of the temptations in the wilderness, Jesus is faced with decisions at the crossroads of life—to choose power, or choose another way? For disinherited communities with their “backs against the wall,” Jesus came to address their fear, to rewire their nervous systems for good, to remind them that the resource of Life itself could never be exhausted, even if the wealthy and powerful hoard the material resources.[2]

Thurman was retrieving Jesus from Christianity. His concern ran so deep that he refused to identify Jesus as the Christ. Thurman’s Grandma Nancy Ambrose taught him to question authority for the sake of discovering a liberating Jesus who spoke to the on-the-ground conditions of those who were suffering. She taught him to hold onto the teachings of Jesus, to claim regardless of circumstances, that he was a child of God. 

When asked directly about the economic conditions impacting Americans, our top elected officials convey that they do not care. They disdain poverty. They fault people for it. People are struggling to pay for groceries, defaulting on loans, and gambling with their health care. And the direct message from these leaders is that they do not care. It does not concern them. 

It is time to take back Jesus, to refuse this profiteering Jesus, without qualification. In this moment, when a muscular Christ of Christian nationalism attempts to define our collective life, it is essential to reclaim the teachings of Jesus.  In a battle of narratives about our collective identity, it is imperative to reject the muscular Jesus who turns to power and away from the powerless.

But it is not a battle. This is where we may go wrong. We cannot take him back because we do not own him. Owning, controlling, and dictating are the operations of what John Caputo calls strong theology.[3]  A theology that locks down truth, excludes. Weak theology aligns with the teachings of Jesus, that power is made perfect in weakness.

The work of theology for these times is to read (and re-read) against the strong theologies of our day. The risen Jesus appears on the other side of death with wounds still on his body. This simultaneity of resurrection and Pentecost in the Gospel of John is helpful for thinking about a Jesus always beyond our grasp, who we are invited to know through tending the wounds of those who are powerless.[4] It is notable that he does not appear with a strong impenetrable body—perfected and glorified--but as a fleshy body with the wounds of past suffering still marking his skin. And he invites his disciples to engage his wounds, not to inflict them in the name of a holy war. 

In this re-reading, resurrection features a scene in which members of the community whose bodies are still gripped with fear are directed to wounds as a way forward. Do not look away. Tend to these wounds. Tell truths about harm done and received. This is the commissioning he extends to his disciples. The spirit I breathe on you is not the spirit of this world, a spirit of unbridled power. It is a fleshy scene. But it also a spectral scene, in which the disciples are unsure of who and what they are seeing. Jesus is suddenly in their midst. But it is difficult to recognize him. His spectral presence on the other side of death is reminder that he is never theirs to own or grasp. 

This reading stands in contrast to the triumphalism of Christian belief that is at the heart of strong theologies. He is not the Christ of certainty, but the Christ discovered when a community dares to get close – to see and touch – wounds. When we turn to the weak, the vulnerable, the disinherited, those who are refused the resources to live; there, he says, you will discover me. It is not a one-time discovery. It is an ethical way of turning together to what is difficult to see--the wounds of the stranger, the displaced one, and the outcast. 

I am getting very anxious about what is happening to Jesus.

Bibliography

Caputo, John D. The Weakness of God: A Theology of the Event. 1st ed. Indiana University Press, 2006.

Rivera, Mayra. The Touch of Transcendence: A Postcolonial Theology of God. 1st ed. Westminster John Knox Press, 2007.

Thurman, Howard. Jesus and the Disinherited. Beacon Press, 2022. 

Wong, Julie Carrie, “Pete Hegseth's Holy War: The Militant Christian Theology Animating the U.S. Attack on Iran," The Guardian, April 10, 2026.

[1] Julia Carrie Wong, "Pete Hegseth's Holy War: The Militant Christian Theology Animating the U.S. Attack on Iran," The Guardian, April 10, 2026.

[2] Howard Thurman. Jesus and the Disinherited. Beacon Press, 2022.

[3] John Caputo. The Weakness of God: A Theology of the Event: 1st ed. Indiana University Press, 2006. 

[4] Mayra Rivera. The Touch of Transcendence: A Postcolonial Theology of God. 1st ed. Westminster John Knox Press, 2007.