Christianity without History-Centrism?

In his deliberations on Christianity, Mahatma Gandhi wrote in his Autobiography:

I could accept Jesus as a martyr, an embodiment of sacrifice, and a divine teacher, but not as the most perfect man ever born. His death on the Cross was a great example to the world, but that there was anything like a mysterious or miraculous virtue in it my heart could not accept.

Gandhi's point is that what is important is the message of Jesus.  Attaching mysterious or miraculous value to his historical aspects really do not have a place in faith.

Several Western scholars too struggled with the same issue of the centrality of history to Christian faith.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) Dunghill

In 1813, in a letter to John Adams, Jefferson wrote: 

"... We must reduce our volume to the simple evangelists, select, even from them, the very words only of Jesus, paring off the amphibologisms into which they have been led, by forgetting often, or not understanding, what had fallen from him, by giving their own misconceptions as his dicta, and expressing unintelligibly for others what they had not understood themselves. There will be found remaining the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man. I have performed this operation for my own use, by cutting verse by verse out of the printed book, and arranging the matter which is evidently his, and which is as easily distinguishable as diamonds in a dunghill."

Gotthold Lessing's (1729-1781) Ditch

The gulf between the historical and the eternal is "the ugly ditch which I cannot get across, however often and however earnestly I have tried to make the leap".

This gulf separated the contingent truths of history from the necessary truths of religion. And there is simply no way to span it from our side. Hence, no matter how probable one finds the Gospel accounts, they can never serve as the basis for knowing eternal truths.

Soren Kierkegaard’s (1813-1855) Leap

How can something of an historical nature be decisive for an eternal happiness?

Real history is unimportant compared to the belief that God appeared among us in the humble form of a servant, that he lived and taught in our community, and finally died. 

Only a “leap” of faith can place us beyond the historical into the spiritual Christ vs. Jesus. 

Even if you could prove the historicity of the Gospels in every detail, it would not necessarily bring one closer to Christ. Conversely, if the critics could disprove the historicity of the Gospels, save that a man lived in whom people believed God dwelt, it would not destroy the foundations of true faith.

Martin Kahler's (1835-1912) Historical/Historic Divide

Should we expect believers to rely on the authority of the learned men when the matter concerns the source from which they are to draw the truth for their lives?

I cannot find sure footing in probabilities or in a shifting mass of details, the reliability of which is constantly changing.

What we want to make absolutely clear is that ultimately we believe in Christ, not on account of any authority, but because he himself evokes such faith from us.

How can Jesus Christ be the real object of faith for all Christians if what and who he really was can be ascertained only by research methodologies so elaborate that only the scholarship of our time is adequate to the task?

Can we have Christian faith without History-Centrism? 

Why didn't these scholars succeed in changing Christianity to focus on the message in the words and life of Jesus and drop the centrality of mysteries and tying ones faith to historical aspects of those mysteries?

History-centrism is non-negotiable

Even as the Church insists on the importance of message in the words and life of Jesus, the centrality of the Christian faith is in the notion of salvation and in establishing the essence of following Jesus to achieve salvation. Thus, the essential nature of historical accounts of mysteries is not negotiable.

1 Corinthians 15:14-19

And if Christ has never been raised, then the message we tell is worth nothing. And your faith is worth nothing. And we will also be guilty of lying about God, because we have told people about him, saying that he raised Christ from death. And if no one is raised from death, then God never raised Christ from death. If those who have died are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised from death, then your faith is for nothing; you are still guilty of your sins. And those in Christ who have already died are lost. If our hope in Christ is only for this life here on earth, then people should feel more sorry for us than for anyone else.