What Would Jesus do? A Critical Examination

In 1990 the captivating phrase What would Jesus do? (WWJD) become so prominent, especially for the young. The phrase was originated from Charles M. Sheldon in his book In His Steps, then this phrase is growing to be a movement. The intension of the phrase is good, it is an encouragement for Christian to think before they act. So that so, their act align with the Gospel. Jesus is the evaluator. Jesus is the mirror. The aim is to practice our Christian faith in our daily live everyday. The WWJD try to give an answer on what does it really mean to becoming Christian. Nevertheless, no matter how good the question at the first impression, pondering on what would Jesus do would also have several undesired implications. 

First, it would be very difficult to ask what would Jesus do to the things that is not even an issue in Jesus time. Let say bio-ethics issue or what recently has been discussed widely on the implication of "Meta-Verse". Second, having said the first, it can be an imaginative kind of quest to ask would Jesus do to some extent will stir some forgery-image of Jesus that is according to our own desire. Third, to ask what would Jesus do in contemporary world is to distort the focus of the Gospel on the historical Jesus (what Jesus did). Its better to ask what the Gospel say for us today (For God's Word and its principle is universal and timeless) rather than what would Jesus do in odds and ends situations. Some even make fun of this WWJD by making a parody with this: "What would Marta Steward do?" 

Although we cannot use this principle to guide us in principle on various ethical matters, we can use this question to expand our thought and imagination or we can say we use this question as like a poetry and art like stimulus to arouse and fulfill our sense of wonder and curiosity. John D. Caputo in his book what would Jesus Deconstruct? make several responds toward the WWJD movement. He revise the nuance of the question with a post-modern flavor, whereby he specify the action (do) of Jesus with the act of deconstruction. What Jesus would do? Simple, deconstruct! (The better word perhaps, metanoia). And John Caputo make a bold statement of hypothesis in his book, he says, 

"My hypothesis is that the first thing that Jesus would deconstruct is WWJD itself-the whole "industry", the whole commercial operation of spiritual and very real-money making Christian capitalists." 

Sadly, the WWJD movement has been commercialized (Selling brackets stickers, and paraphernalia) and therefore is not in line with the original implication of the phrase in its purest form. Although we can agree with Caputo critique toward WWJD, totally, as his post-modern implication of WWJD (deconstruct) also quite progressive in certain aspect (I appreciate his attempt to show how actually deconstruction can create a hermeneutics of kingdom to critique the idol of the church such as literalism,  authoritarianism, imperialism and so on).

Nonetheless, as for me myself, what most concern me is the essence of WWJD itself somehow presenting us to the idea that discipleship is to merely "copy Jesus." In the Scripture Bible command us to imitate Jesus and never Copy Him for we cannot really copy Him, cannot we? Not even a chance for in essence, we are only mere human being. Furthermore, as we all know, some of Christ's Mission is purely His (Incarnation, forgive sins, died at the cross as savior), are we sure we can copy that? 

Therefore, the implication of WWJD at certain extent can be "misleading" and "unhelpful." Lucy Peppiatt in The Disciple: On becoming truly Human put his thought critically and aptly, "When we say Jesus's life serves as a model for our own, what are we talking about? If we answer this question solely on the basis of what Jesus does, the interesting thing is, that we come up with a whole number of different answers depending on whom we ask." It seems that the author critical comment was actually in harmony with my previous three critiques at first paragraphs. 

We can together probably conclude unequivocally that WWJD is too speculative and imaginative. Jesus life should become the ultimate model that we should learn and imitate (principle) but He never ask us to  "copy" Him (so here, disagree with Witness Lee who argue that Christian should copy Jesus rather than imitating Jesus). Consequently, having said all those things, we can argue that there is not only one way of doing things but multiple ways and all  those ways can glorified God as long as it is grounded in Christ's word and principle as the utmost yard stick of our actions in any given circumstances!