chavos

starting a thread on what Christianity isn't defined by...i knew that i would be asked for a positive description. i waited on it, because i don't want to give the impression that i'm attempting to define the issue. i'm offering my perspective...for whever that's worth.

ten points that i think point to the ways in which Christianity can and is changing for the better:

1. Christianity can be about grace. For a religion started on the premise of God's unimaginiable gift of grace, it has gotten weighed down with a lot of guilt, shame, and fear. People often charge that with out fear of God, there can be no sincerity of religion. I think that's crap. Separation from God is something to be grieved, not something to be avoided simply because you'll burn. God isn't the response to sin. Faith isn't about making yourself acceptable to God. It is about relationship, one started with a gift. (Jhn 3:16)

2. The bible can be support that relationship, when freed from literalism. When the texts are something to be accepted, to bend every other fact to, they becom very harmful. The whole idea of heresy is based on the idea that Jesus was about exclusivity, something that his ministry undermines. The tradition of scripture that Jesus was familiar with and used was one of discussion, arguement and relationship. The texts were to be studied, honored, and interpreted, but not in the sense of simply reading the words and taking them at face value. (Lk 4) Biblical study needs academic rigor and imagination to counter excessive literalization. The scriptures are artifacts of faith, not idols of worship.

Similarly, we must own up to texts that support violence, exclusion and evil. It is not enough to say we don't follow them. We must point to why-the ways in which they are critiqued and subverted by the larger message of the text. Inheriting an ancient tradition is a honor, but it is also a liability. We cannot be theological hostages to mistakes of anger made long ago.

When we don't claim that every word is the "Word of God" verbatim, we can be honest about our revelation: there is profound truth, but one that is not easy to define. It is found in struggling with the texts, openly argueing and challenging and working with, not choking them down.

3. Christianity can be open to anyone with out being for everyone. I believe in the great commission. Christ calls us to teach all nations the good news of his work on earth. But i don't think that means door knocking until the whole world is Christian. There are so many works of faith that we are called to-to serve the poor, heal the sick, comfort the grieving, free the opressed...that it is in those works that we will bear our greatest witness to the light (Matt 25). And when anyone asks why...we can tell them that we come in the name of the servant Christ.
Conversly, to anyone who is drawn to our community, we need to open our doors. Barriers of gender idenity, sexual orientation, race, class...have no role in defining Christian community. There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female. All are one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28)

4. Christianty can be more than a country club. Too often, it has become a comfortable faith that idenitifies with the rich. But there is a revolution in the words of Christ. Anything we have here is nothing on its own. To rewrite tolkien, it is what we do with the lives that are given to us. That means our talents, time, wealth. It will serve Christ, or it will serve something else. We need to choose.

5. Christianity can recover its Jewish roots. In my study of the Gospels, i have found a startlingly semitic faith, grounded in tradition, and with out the senseless conflict and rivalry that have marked Jewish-Christian relations for 2000 years. The Old Testament is not simply the prolouge to the New. We need to relearn those texts... The vocabulary of faith, expectation, and relationship that Judiasm has needs to find Christian audiences.

The conception of the Old Testament as simply being legalism must be shattered. It traces the evolution of faith in a God who loves steadfastly, is the source of justice, and walks with us in our lives.

6. Preaching can do more. It is not simply enough to have a sermon that is interesting, telegenic, or packs the house. We are in possession of one of the most complicated and rich pieces of literature on earth. What passes for critical interpretation in modern preaching is truely a shame. A trained, academic, imaginative clergy is needed. It will only come from a laity that has been inspired to search beyond the surface, to explore their faith in new ways.

7. Christianity can use it's privildge for good. For better or for worse, Christian leadership of the west is undeniable. If the world wants to give Christians power or respect, we must make a show of how we use it. Privildge must be used to serve those who are marginialized...true compassion is when we speak up in outrage over the wounds we don't suffer, but see inflicted on those who are different.

8. Theology can be remade. Doctrine has become a constant defense game. Christians are spending their energies trying to rationalize a narrow reading of the texts and traditions. Theology at it's root means the science of God. Science means experimenting to find facts. Science doesn't start with conclusions. It starts with questions. It invites scrutiny, not flattery. We need to live in the promise and hope, not in close minded certainty. Simply declaring that there is a big man in the sky has ceased to be compelling on many levels. We need to listen to how God is proclaiming God's self...and explore with minds and hearts open.

9. Christianity can stop fighting against modernity, and start fighting to be become a part of it. Christians have set themselves against science or progress in the name of faith to God...and we need to explore why. It is not a good use of time to declare that Galieo is an offence against God's majesty. Christianity needs to get out of the business of explaining the physical world. That has never been its strong point.

It is a far better use of time to fight to reform the inhumanity of modernity-how the poor are cast off on the world stage, how we have cynically embraced dangerous dictators to protect us from other dangerous dictators, a lack of investment in educating and protecting children, and all the other ways in which society does not treat human life with respect. We must be a passionate voice, not a crazed one.

10. We can find new energy. Ultimately, Christianity is about amazing, good news. We have a positive, open message for anyone who wants to listen. Turning our back on negativity, exclusion, and fear will not be easy. We are humans, mired in human shortcoming. But with grace, we can find the other answer...the one that doesn't rely on competition, but subverts the idea that we are set against anyone in the first place. This story has had life in it for 2000 years, despite all that's been done to contain it in a creed, or a cover it in human ideas of saved and damned. It is a story of life and love given freely to friend and foe alike. It is a story that speaks to our needs, and God's constant chase of us. We need to let it be free.

tecoyah

Is this the part where you pass the basket around?

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Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - Buddha

chavos

No...it's where i answered several direct inquiries as to how Christianity could exist outside of fundamentalism.

ARTelevision

I guess living a Jesus-like life would be all it would need to be, really.

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chavos

true, Art...and it sounds a whole lot wiser in so few words. what it means to imimitate Jesus has gotten pretty obscured though. i won't entirely credit WWJD?, but when Christianity stops treating him like a man entirely, he's impossible to emulate.

Mantus

What about putting down the Bible all together? One could extract the teachings of Jesus from its muted 2,000 year old perspective. There is too much historical bias in that book. It is written in too old of a tongue. As many have pointed out it can be made to say whatever you want it to say. The Old Testament is full of horrendous evil that people did in the name of god. I think that one would be making a huge mistake by handing on to the Bible as the main source of wisdom and answers in Christianity.

chavos

would hamlet be a good play if it was:

If you uncle kills your father and seduces your mother, you should not kill yourself. You should team up with your best sidekick, send a few men to their death, and talk smack to your lover. She will throw herself in to a river. You may then die gloriously to avenge the wrong committed.

Hamlet is written in an old tongue. It contains cultural biases. You can derive multiple, contradictory meanings from it. It is full of evil that is commited in the name of rightiousness.

But you see why the abridged version doesn't cut it?

in terms of bias, etc...yeah. it is not an objective document. Should it be? A document with a moral point to it is not objective. A good example of this is the declaration of independance. Review it, and try to redact biased statements. Won't have much left at all...you'll have a soul-less document.

The language, again is a challenge. But i dispute that it is a critical flaw. There are quality translations available for common use(chief among them the NRSV and the ASV), and the languages are required study for most trained clergy. Even if you simply pick up greek, which is not that hard, you have access to the entirely of the NT. Even still, for most theological work, the English translations are quite servicable. With both hebrew and greek, we possess enough other source material to accurately determine the meaning of most words. If you wanted to excise the study of dead language documents, you would have to give up pretty much all of western history. Thinking of documents written in Latin, Norse, Old or Middle English alone, we have the basis and history of our entire legal system. I don't think this is a valid standard to judge texts at all. Translation and study of language is simply an added and necessary difficulty.

Multiple meaning texts are similarly valid as sources of moral instruction. They promote active engagement and relationship with the text, and the discovery of different solutions to the same problem. Single meaning texts are unsatisfying to adult readers-single meaning situations rarely occur in life, and such texts do not adequately model the realities of existance. Simple fables or moralistic stories do not challenge the reader to develop critical thinking. They foster simplistic responses and positive responses to authoritarian commands.

The question of evil. Engaging the text, i find this to be the most challenging part of my study. To crib words, one of the most pressing questions Pilate faces during the trial is: "What will i do with this Jesus that they say is the Messiah?"

The text as a whole makes amazing claims...but it doesn't always measure up, and sometimes it simply dazzles with its power and resonance with my soul. So what do i do with this Jesus, this text, this God? I challenge, i question, i doubt, and i keep pressing for more. But in that relationship, i can deal with those problems. It may be a matter of looking for translations, other cultural meanings, and contextualizing with in a pre-modern world. I may have to see it as cultural history and not moral instruction. I may have to disown the part of text altogether. But if the Bible did not have evil in it...i don't know if it would really cover enough of human life to be real to us. We spend a vast amount of our time engaged in evil...and for a record of a faith community to not touch upon it, or to even engage in it in the name of God...i would be surprised. Challenging, complex, polyvalent...that's what it has to be to rich enough to wrestle with and to work out a faith with. Simple, easy and clean...does that sound like life to you?

So i'll treasure the scriptures.

Tophat665

Chavos: Good stuff! Get out there and preach it. Challenge the idiots at the 700 club. I mean, put that way, Christianity is fairly hard to argue against.

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tecoyah

I cannot believe that you just compared Hamlet to the bible, at least not in this context. You obviously have an incredible understanding of the bible, and a limited understanding of social reality. People are not asked to "live the life" of Hamlet, and entire societies do not attempt to emulate the fiction of this work. I can see the analogy in that both are excellent works of fictional literature, but the societal implications must end there.
I have read the religious works of many societies, and find the western christians to be amongst the last to hold the literal value of the ancient texts, rather than take them for what they are.

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Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - Buddha

chavos

tophat: *bows deeply* Thank you.

tecoyah: No need to insult my knowledge of social realities. I could have picked from any number of fictional works who inform our cultural sense of morality and idenity. We see oursevles in fiction-we find a character we sympathize with, we translate our drama in to the story. We learn vicariously.

I understand that there is a difference... i'm not about to cannonize Hamlet anytime soon. That said, i have no more impulse to promote literal understandings of the bible than of hamlet. Both need to be filtered by our sense of fiction, metaphor and theme.

Mantus

Apologies for a poorly put statement on my part, it is becoming a bad habit that I make a point to break immediately.

You are correct that the Bible should not be touched. That was a foolish idea on my part. There is no such thing as the perfect scripture for there is no such thing as a perfect mortal.

I did not mean to come across as if I was asking to scrap the whole Bible. I was trying to say that perhaps it should be put on the shelf along side all those other great sources of wisdom that are available to humanity. I realize that the Bible is the origin of Jesus, and that it should be read to expand our understanding of the great man and his love of God. Yet Jesus was the Son of God and had infinite wisdom and understanding of his father. This wisdom is lacking in humanity.

As a human being you must realize that wisdom is something we can never pass on to other people. Wisdom is the experience of the journey. Every person is different, no one takes the same road and every one has their own way of walking it. When we read the Bible, the Analects, the Tao De Jing, the Tripitaka or any other great tombs of wisdom we do not look for wisdom we search for guidance; the guidance to help us walk the path before us.

To use your Hamlet analogy. Hamlet is a great play yet it is not all there is of tragedy. Shakespeare is not all there is of tragedy. Certainly we can learn allot from Shakespeare. We can spend lifetimes leeching meaning out of every page and every line yet there is more literature out there, there is so much more. Sometimes a change of perspective could be all we really need to see what we are looking for.

Therefore should we not open our minds to all the knowledge that humanity has produced in hope of finding God and waking the same path that great men such as Jesus have walked? The Bible is just one of many sources for the knowledge we seek. It is a vast tomb with many meanings and that is exactly why we should expand our search for guidance. If the destination is the same (the grace of God) then why not combine all we know and use it to guide us in the right direction?

chavos

mantus: fair point...study of the bible should not be to the total exclusion of other sources. reading, understanding, and seeking from other traditions has been a part of my faith, and its something i would heartily reccomend. there is indeed much wisdom, life, and the divine in other traditions. sometimes i'm struck by how much is the same as from what i'm used to....the universals of faith. and sometimes there's something very new.

but for whatever wisdom i've heard...it is the Jesus story (and supporting hebrew traditions) that i'm drawn back to. and i can't really explain this. i cannot prove that it is the best path, in fact i'm quite sure that there is no such thing. but the affinity remains...and for many others. perhaps it is simply our upbringing. or maybe its the story.

in the end...i don't think that a Christian idenity is ended by or prohibits a full contemplation of other traditions.

Mantus

Very nicely put. This conception of Christianity is truly marvelous and I am sure it is truest to the spirit of Christ. May fate be on your side Chavos.

Tophat665

Hmmm. This all sounds like we're skating really close to deism (one of the few religions I get along with as a religion rather than as personal spirituality, mostly because it was all about personal spirituality.)

__________________
Light a man a fire, and he will be warm while it burns.
Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.

chavos

tophat...i don't know i would agree completely. deism, as i understand it, assumes a creator who is inactive in creation.

i share the tendancy not to emphasize the role of God in physically manipulating creation: causing floods, control over day to day action, physically raising Christ from the grave, etc...

but i do not share the tendancy to see God as completely remote from the world. I'm very much a Holy Spirit kinda guy-inspiration, emotion, revelation, insight, wisdom, thought, metaphor...in these ways i see God as very much active in and loving of creation.

i think the problem i have with deism is that it isn't compelling to me. if God is good, but does not act towards those ends, i'd like to know why. And i've never gotten a good answer for that from deism. that, and my experiences point me towards experiencing God's action in the world.