Narrative Closure and Jesus

Now that my dissertation is getting into full hobble, I'm working on the "Introduction" in which I attempt to make the mental meanderings of my four chapters be integrated into one seamless whole. My topic engages with issues of narrative "closure" and whether endings actually do cohere (and, implicitly, whether dissertations do). Well, I got to thinking that since I was using the word "closure" so much, it would be nice to know how the word functioned in eighteenth-century writings. So, I decided to use Eighteenth-Century Collections Online to do a word-search on "closure." In this search, I came across the following odd excerpt from John Barnard's A Zeal for Good Works Excited and Directed (1742):

"Would it not look more like the workings of the Spirit of God, upon the Hearts of People, for them, under a deep Concern of Soul for their eternal Salvation, to retire to their secret Devotions, and humble themselves before God, in a Sense of their Sins, and earnestly beg Help from him, that they may be led to a saving Closure with the Lord Jesus Christ, by a true and lively Faith, and to an unfeigned Repentance, and Life of Holiness, and go to their Minister to direct them wherein they need Direction, and improve their most serious Thoughts upon what they shall do to be saved, and immediately set upon the doing of it?" (38)

Now, perhaps your first thought is, "That is a rather long sentence." But the bit I found rather interesting is the phrase, "a saving Closure with the Lord Jesus Christ." Despite how odd the phrase sounds to twenty-first century ears, the phrase did show up a number of times in my search.

My point is not to say, "Ewww, they were weird back then!" It is interesting, however, how rhetoric alters through time. Nowadays, one method people often use to determine whether someone is "really" a Christian is to inquire whether someone is "saved" or if they have a "close, personal relationship with Jesus Christ." I can't help wondering, if we asked an eighteenth-century Christian if they had this "close personal relationship," would their response be, "What the heck are you talking about?" (If they used the word "Heck," of course.) My brow would certainly furrow in puzzlement if they tried to ascertain my spiritual state by querying whether I sought a saving closure with Jesus Christ. Both parties may have established different linguistic norms for describing Christian experience, and these expressions may sound foreign and intuitively "wrong" to Christians from a different era or religious community.

It's also interesting to speculate whether these language norms are being used to express the same "essence" of what it means to be a Christian, or whether using different language modifes our understanding of Christianity. For example, "Close personal relationship" might lead us to thinking of God as warm and fuzzy; at the very least, it emphasizes his immanence more than His transcendence. It focuses on "relationship" rather than, say, a set of beliefs (e.g., believe that Jesus rose from the dead, Romans 10:9). "Close" (in close personal) suggests proximity to God, but "closure" may suggest distancing from sin--it is a definitive break. Or, "closure" may emphasize the sense of completion--the "closure" that comes when one's entire life has been judged. The emphasis becomes on future closure (the end of one's life) rather than a past moment (e.g., "conversion"). To what extent are these two different expressions complementary or contradictory?

Anyway, to be more ecumenical, and so that we don't offend eighteenth-century Christians, perhaps it would be best to just combine the two. Just ask people, "Do you have a close, personal closure with the Lord Jesus Christ?" If they do not immediately respond "yes," you can be sure that they are neither an eighteenth-century Christian nor a twenty-first century one.