Actually, here I want to bring together quotes from four sources. But to begin with one I found from actor and writer Rainn Wilson:
The metamorphosis of Jesus Christ from a humble servant of the abject poor to a symbol that stands for gun rights, prosperity theology, anti-science, limited government (that neglects the destitute) and fierce nationalism is truly the strangest transformation in human history. (Posted on Twitter, August 4, 2019)
Whilst the words directly reflect the ethos of United States politics and social trends, Wilson’s point holds good for so many contemporary expressions of what is called Christianity. The fundamental challenge is to all groups claiming to be followers of Jesus, where the values and priorities of religious institutions become the dominant, defining, and often exclusive ethos, in short an ideology.
This quote from Richard Rohr sets up the contrast:
I believe that we totally missed Jesus’ major point when we made a religion out of him instead of realizing he was giving us a message of simple humanity, vulnerability, and nonviolence that was necessary for the survival of humanity.
Again we return to the fundamental meaning of the Gospel, and here I think one of the critical issues has to do with what people often think it pertains to—what is sometimes called the spiritual dimension of our lives.
Sometimes it is said that humans are ‘body, mind and spirit’, and religion or faith is concerned with ‘the spirit’. By implication it is not so much concerned with the physical and intellectual, or rational, aspects of human life, and society. It is precisely this ethos (and ideology) that allows people to separate ‘the Gospel’ from politics, from how we organize society and economics, and even what we do with and how we care for (or do not care for) our own bodies, and the earth. A kind of split occurs between the world at large and ‘the spiritual’. People even refer to their spiritual lives. I wonder how many lives they have.
This is such a wrong mindset. Here are two further quotes that help to create an entirely different focus: First from John Scotus Eriguena, Irish theologian of the 9th century (he lived 810 – 877):
Christ wears two shoes in the world: Scripture and Nature. Both are necessary to understand the Lord, and at no stage can creation be seen as a separation of things from God.
A related idea is that God has given us two ‘books’ to read, nature and the scriptures, and in both we see God and without either one of them we have too limited an idea of God, and life. We must not, as Scotus says, separate ‘things’ from what we might call ‘the spiritual’.
In the same spirit (I use the term by choice), Pope Francis has spoken of the fundamental reality that our life is inherently interdependent.
Rivers do not drink their own water; trees do not eat their own fruit; the sun does not shine on itself and flowers do not spread their fragrance for themselves. Living for others is a rule of nature. We are all born to help each other. No matter how difficult it is…life is good when you are happy, but much better when others are happy because of you.
We live with nature as nature is itself an interdependent system, an ecology. Together, we may have life in its fullness. We may be happy, together. This is the gift of the Creator, to us all. The Gospel is an invitation to this life, life together. It is therefore a denial of the Gospel and a life-destroying attitude to think that we live for our own prosperity, property, and rights (such as gun rights, but there are many other such concerns)—to the exclusion of those who are different in colour, values, sexuality, culture, and so on. This is not only anti-science, but resistant to the reality of life, life with the world as it is created, life with God.
What then are we to do about all this?
The season of Lent is precisely the time to be reflecting upon this distortion of our life and faith, and the demands of a wholistic, life-giving Gospel. Together, we just might discover the saving, life-giving reality that is all around us, as Jesus hoped to indicate.
When I was a young person attending an evangelical church, there was a song they sang that asked, ‘What will you do with Jesus?’
Indeed, what have we done with Jesus!
We were singing the song ‘The Creed’ in church the other day and it occurred to me that there is nothing in the Apostles Creed about social justice. My opinion is that the early Christians were concerned to shore up positions where there was division in the church whereas there were no such conflicts over social justice. Over time, though, there became more emphasis on points of division than on those of agreement and as people succumbed to the temptations of the world social justice became devalued.
Yes: you are right I think to conclude that the creeds are really focussed on the things they were arguing about, and social justice wasn’t one of them. But I think there is also something here to do with the gradual shift from hebraic ideas of what it means to be a person (inherently embodied) to more hellenistic ideas which permitted eventually the idea of a disembodied soul—and in turn the idea of salvation as the soul surviving death. All of that contributes to the things we have been naming.
What I think it vital here, too, is to acknowledge that there is never any culturally free or ‘pure’ gospel or theology. We are all shaped by who and where we are. All the more reason to be open to others who are different and invite us to new depths or perspectives, rather than shutting it all down.
Thanks Frank for sharing.
Michael Bowden in his book the “Unbreakable Rock” about his experience with the indigenous in the Northern Territory quotes an aboriginal women when discussing what is sacred ; ” for us everything is sacred.”