{"id":10528,"date":"2009-12-09T18:34:48","date_gmt":"2009-12-09T23:34:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=10528"},"modified":"2009-12-09T18:34:48","modified_gmt":"2009-12-09T23:34:48","slug":"whatever-happened-to-jesus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2009\/12\/whatever-happened-to-jesus\/","title":{"rendered":"Whatever happened to Jesus?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Are we as church members downplaying Jesus? <\/p>\n

I don’t mean this in a theological sense; rather, it seems to me that church members (and leaders) tend to de-emphasize the use of the single-name description Jesus. We regularly use the name Jesus when it is associated with the title Christ. However, when we use a single-word name, LDS speakers — unlike speakers I’ve heard from other denominations — tend to use the name Christ, not Jesus. <\/p>\n

For instance, Elder Uchtdorf’s talk The Way of the Disciple<\/a> uses the combined title Jesus Christ more than two dozen times. Elder Uchtdorf uses a one-word title four times; three of them are Christ. <\/p>\n

“Perhaps the disciples thought this was a turning point\u2014the moment when the Jewish world would finally recognize Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah.”<\/p>\n

“The gospel is the good news of Christ.”<\/p>\n

“The more we fill our hearts and minds with the message of the risen Christ, the greater our desire is to follow Him and live His teachings.”<\/p>\n

“This, in turn, causes our faith to grow and allows the light of Christ to illuminate our hearts.”<\/p>\n

Elder Uchtdorf’s recent talk The Love of God<\/a> also focused on being a disciple of Jesus Christ. This talk does not make any references to the stand-alone name Jesus; it does contain five references to the stand-alone title of Christ. <\/p>\n

“Our walk as disciples of Christ becomes more joyful.”<\/p>\n

“Love is the defining characteristic of a disciple of Christ.”<\/p>\n

“Don\u2019t feel downcast or despair if you don\u2019t feel worthy to be a disciple of Christ at all times.”<\/p>\n

“As you reach out to your Heavenly Father, as you pray to Him in the name of Christ, He will answer you. ”<\/p>\n

“If you listen for the voice of the Father, He will lead you on a course that will allow you to experience the pure love of Christ.”<\/p>\n

A decade ago, the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve issued a statement about the divinity and importance of Jesus Christ. Its title? “The Living Christ.<\/a>”<\/p>\n

Why is this? <\/p>\n

Are there theological reasons to use title rather than name? Could Elder Uchtdorf’s references be replaced with the name Jesus? “Our walk as disciples of Jesus becomes more joyful”; “Love is the defining characteristic of a disciple of Jesus”; “If you listen for the voice of the Father, He will lead you on a course that will allow you to experience the pure love of Jesus”? It even sounds a little wrong, doesn’t it? We have grown accustomed to an environment where the stand-alone name of Jesus is used much less than the title Christ. More extensive use of the name Jesus sounds — well, evangelical. <\/p>\n

Is this just a cultural tic, or is there theological content to this tendency? What do folks think? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Are we as church members downplaying Jesus? I don’t mean this in a theological sense; rather, it seems to me that church members (and leaders) tend to de-emphasize the use of the single-name description Jesus. We regularly use the name Jesus when it is associated with the title Christ. However, when we use a single-word name, LDS speakers — unlike speakers I’ve heard from other denominations — tend to use the name Christ, not Jesus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corn"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10528"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10529,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10528\/revisions\/10529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}