The Catholic League is upset by something Elton John said, but the League's response is quite odd. Elton John recently stated, "I think Jesus was a compassionate, super-intelligent gay man who understood human problems." No one should be surprised that many people would disagree with his claim that Jesus was "gay." However, it was surprising to see someone take issue with the "super-intelligent" part. The League's President, Bill Donohue, argued:
Jesus was certainly compassionate, but to say He was "super-intelligent" is to compare the Son of God to a successful game-show contestant.Huh? Does Donohue think Jesus was dumb? Donohue's main point in the full statement was to criticize Elton John on the issue of homosexuality. Yet, it is not clear why he added the complaint about the "super-intelligent" claim. Maybe Donohue would have gone for that description if Jesus had read people's minds in the Gospels!
Dallas Willard has frequently spoken to the reluctance to think of Jesus as smart:
ReplyDelete"In our culture, and among Christians as well, Jesus Christ is automatically disassociated from brilliance or intellectual capacity. Not one in a thousand will spontaneously think of him in conjunction with words such as "well-informed," "brilliant," or "smart."
Far too often he is regarded as hardly conscious. He is taken as a mere icon, a wraith-like semblance of a man living on the margins of the "real life" where you and I must dwell. He is perhaps fit for the role of sacrificial lamb or alienated social critic, but little more.
But can we seriously imagine that Jesus could be Lord if he were not smart? If he were divine, would he be dumb? Or uninformed? Once you stop to think about it, how could he be what Christians take him to be in other respects and not be the best informed and most intelligent person of all: the smartest person who ever lived, bringing us the best information on the most important subjects."