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I once encountered an articulate, angry young Marxist at Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park, London. As we had come upon a small knot of people during an afternoon stroll, it had appeared that the young Communist had silenced a gentle Christian preacher by loudly proclaiming that Jesus Christ was "not a pleasant person!" As he waved a New Testament under the nose of the abashed speaker, still marooned a foot above the rest of us on his soapbox, the assailant thought he was scoring an impressive point. But then another Christian in the audience, one with a firmer grasp of the gospel, spoke up: "Of course Jesus wasn't a pleasant person. You don't crucify nice guys!"

Why would anyone crucify the reasonable Jesus of the Enlightenment? Why would anyone crucify the dreamy poet of Romanticism? Why would anyone crucify the Law-abiding, mild-mannered rabbi of revisionist Jewish scholarship? Why would anyone crucify the witty, enigmatic, and marginal figure of the Jesus Seminar?

What Jewish scholar Jacob Neusner says about revisionist Jewish views of Jesus is true of most of Allen's long line: "Theologians produced the figure they could admire most at the least cost." But the Cross stands amidst each such easy path, each attempt to avoid the heart of the matter and the cost of discipleship. The Cross remains a stumbling block for all who encounter this Jesus. He is perhaps not the person we want, but he is surely the person we still—desperately—need.

John G. Stackhouse, Jr., is Sangwoo Youtong Chee Professor of Theology at Regent College, Vancouver, and author of Can God Be Trusted? Faith and the Challenge of Evil (Oxford University Press).

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December 7 1998, Vol. 42, No. 14