I awoke a few minutes ago with death on my mind (again). Strange though it may sound, Steve Jobs’ life and death have been haunting me for weeks now, and makes me reflect on the significance of a public death, and (naturally enough) to Jesus’ death.

As well as an evolving biblical hermeneutic, my journey away from traditional evangelicalism is a reanalysis of the gospel of Jesus and in particular, the relative weight of his life and death. While an oversimplified caricature, it’s commonly argued that evangelicals fixate on the significance of Jesus’ death (and resurrection) and minimise the content of his life. Liberals do the opposite, lauding Jesus’ moral teaching while diminishing his death (beyond being an ultimate demonstration of his moral character) and caring less about resurrection.

I am more liberal than ever before in this limited contrast; I am drawn to Jesus’ teaching and moral restraint in the face of vicious opposition. I’m also much less able to jump to a simple evangelical model of the gospel message (Jesus died for your sins, to placate the Father and save you from His wrath – but only if you repent and believe, otherwise you’ll face judgement and hell) since this seems so divorced from Jesus’ message of loving enemies, forgiveness and reconciliation.

But I’m uncomfortable with the way in which such liberalism seems to sidestep Jesus’ stated motivation in the face of death. In my mind is the tense encounter between Jesus and Pilate, in which the latter demands to know about Jesus’ alleged kingship. Jesus admits that he is king of a kingdom ‘not of this world’. He doesn’t face his death with Socratic dignity because it’s morally right to do so; he does it as an otherworldly king wielding power even as he is condemned to a tortuous death. Furthermore, in his speech to the Sanhedrin Jesus anticipates a future heavenly denouement in which his enemies will see him enthroned.

I don’t see how one can adopt Jesus’ message (of loving enemies etc) while stripping away the future-oriented otherworldliness of his motivation. Albert Schweitzer’s conclusion that Jesus was a radical eschatological revolutionary rather than a soft-tongued moral teacher rings in my ears at this point.

What gripped me as I awoke was that this is a real-world issue, not just a matter for arid debate. I want to live out the teachings of Jesus. I want to care about the suffering on my TV. I want to reach out to the undeserving around me, even as I realise my own undeservingness. But I feel acutely the profound lack of moral firepower to lift me from self-centredness. I hunger for the inner transformation promised by evangelicalism even as I drift away from its moorings.

Ramble over. Time for a good cup of tea.