Uniquely Christlike: The Improvisational Dimensions of Imitatio Christi

Abstract

A commitment to historic, orthodox Christology constrains us to affirm the particularity (and thus, unrepeatability) of Christ both in terms of his historical contingency and in terms of theological significance. Yet the Bible calls us to imitate Christ (e.g., 1 Cor. 11:1; Eph. 5:1-2; 1 Pet. 2:21, etc.). How can the Bible command us to do something, quite literally, impossible? The problem, of course, lies with our definitions and assumptions, for we generally take “imitation” to mean the mimicry and/or reduplication of another. By contrast, this dissertation goes beyond the boundaries imposed by static conceptions of imitation by combining Theology and the Arts with Spirit Christology.Central to the aims of this project is the desire to contribute to a nascent field of theological inquiry within Theology and the Arts: a theology of improvisation. The dissertation, then, looks specifically at jazz improvisation, persuaded that it is particularly helpful for articulating the generative momentum underlying imitatio Christi. Christlikeness, however, is and remains a work of the Spirit, and as such, any conformity to Christ by imitation needs to consider the Spirit’s superintending sanctifying work. Biblical scholarship, of course, will ground my theological assumptions and provide a footing for my arguments, but this dissertation does not aim to be anything other than a theological work in systematic, dogmatic, and/or constructive character. Further, though the work of theology should endeavor to make interdisciplinary connections, any musicological or sociological concerns relevant to the project will serve, rather than supplant, its theological impulse.The interplay between a theology of improvisation and Spirit Christology, in relation to imitatio Christi, allows us to draw several conclusions. Firstly, the dynamic of improvisation as practiced in jazz, here defined as a spontaneous praxis of virtue in response to the other, is profoundly generative for theology. Secondly, the process of “transcription, transposition, and transformation” through which jazz musicians learn to improvise can be applied to Christological concerns, allowing us to conceive of Jesus as improvising upon both the Old Testament and Second Temple Judaism, following the inexhaustibly creative Spirit with whom he was baptized. Therefore, thirdly, if Christ can be thought of as improvising in the Spirit, then by virtue of Christians being baptized with the same Spirit, imitating Christ means the extension, rather than the retention, of his pattern. As such, the intersection between Spirit Christology and a jazz-informed theology of improvisation allows us to rethink imitation as a long process of conformity to Christ’s habitus through the practices and habits of worship in which the Spirit meets us. To be Christlike, then, means to participate in Christ’s mind – something made possible only by being baptized with Christ’s Spirit (Gal. 4:6).If indeed the process of “transcription, transposition, and transformation” allows many musicians to be shaped by the musical imagination of one improviser, and yet come to different expressions of the same, then the musicians will have achieved unique expressions of that one model. Something similar happens in the process of Christlikeness: each of us becomes Christlike in our own unique way as we listen attentively to the transcription of Jesus’s performance (Scripture), engaging it devotionally in the practices and habits of worship. There, the Spirit transposes Christ’s habitus into ours, thus enabling us to transform his pattern to meet our moment in creative yet faithful ways. Thus, a theology of improvisation can be summed up as follows: it is participation by the Spirit in the Son’s spontaneous praxis of virtue in response to the Father’s call.