[+/-] What Should Have Been Done

A bunch of Christians should have looked around them a few decades (or centuries) ago and said "Hey, we see a group of people who are marginalized. They're afraid, they're misunderstood, they're feared and ostracized and discriminated against. It isn't right that they should be treated like this. We should help them." And then the Christians should have approached these other people and shown kindness to them. Not bullshit pretend-to-be-their-friend-so-they'll-listen-to-your-sales-pitch kindness, but the sort of kindness Jesus showed. The kind where the other person believes that you sincerely care about them, where you give of yourself freely and unconditionally. The kind where you stand up for them against adversity, and also sit down with them in fellowship. The kind where you spend a lot of time listening and not much time talking, where you don't pretend to understand the other person - their thoughts, feelings and motivations - until you've earned that understanding through long years of intimacy. The kind where you don't judge.

Some of these Christians - the ones who were politically motivated - should have organized rallies and wrote letters to raise awareness about the mistreatment of this other group. Some who were leaders should have organized charities and ministries to help those among them who were struggling emotionally or physically. Some should have organized support groups including both Christians and members of this other group, and many should have just hung out together.

Few Christians should have dwelled on whether what these people were doing was right, or whether membership in Christianity and this other group are mutually exclusive. None should have preached to them about their sin. None should have resisted the fight for their recognition and rights. None should have opened their mouths against these people as a group before first knowing and loving them as individuals. None should have shamed them, or excluded them, or seen their choices or their lifestyle before their humanity. This other group I'm talking about is homosexuals, but the same thing applies to any other group that faces bigotry.

I've gone from "being gay is wrong" to "being gay is not wrong" to "who cares whether it's wrong or not". Seriously, why does it matter? Why should a person's lifestyle and the question of it's sinfulness have any effect on the way we interact with them? If Christians want to concern themselves with society's acceptance of homosexuals, they should be fighting against discrimination and bigotry, not perpetrating it, regardless of their personal views (or even God views, if you're so confident that you know what they are) about it's rightness or wrongness. It's as if Christians feel that their first responsibility in relating to "sinners" is to make it clear to them and anyone else who might be watching that they disapprove of their "sin", and their second responsibility is to show God's love, so long as it doesn't interfere with the first. What nonsense! Love people first, and then if you really feel led to make them aware of their sin, you'll have the opportunity sooner or later. (And this way you'll actually know what you're talking about, and they might even be inclined to listen to you.) But remember that our responsibility in the world is not to convict people of their sins. That's the Spirit's job. We're here to show love - without restrictions, without conditions, and without concern for what the upright and the uptight will think.

[+/-] A Gold-Foil Idol

My Art History teacher recently mentioned that Christianity is a text-based religion, meaning that it's built around a book. I don't think I like the idea of text-based religion (or "spirituality", if "religion" is a dirty word to you). I think text is good (I'm a student, remember. I know the value of books.) but I don't want the focal point of my life to be a book. I want the focal point of my life to be servanthood, selflessness, and love.

After thinking about this a bit I decided many Christians would agree with me. I'm sure that many would say their religion may be text-based, but it's not text-focused or text-contained. They would say that they too pursue love as their highest goal and that they've found the Bible to be an indispensable guide in this pursuit. I certainly have no objection to that. What concerns me is that all too often text-based becomes text-focused, or doctrine-focused. The logic seems to be that if a book is our basis, then proper understanding of this book must be our goal. This is tragic, because it turns Jesus' revolution into just another brand of Phariseeism.

Jesus was all about people. He healed people, he fed people, he taught people. But more than that, he went to people's parties, he stayed up late talking to people, and he spent time with the people no one else in his society cared about. And I don't have to tell you that the one group Jesus didn't get along with was the doctrine-obsessed religious elite. It wasn't their vast knowledge of the scriptures that Jesus objected to, nor their zeal for righteousness - these things are of course good. But their lack of love, their obsession with their own legalistic purity, this Jesus found intolerable.

When Jesus was gone his followers wrote down the things he said and did. Of course they did - how else could this important knowledge be preserved for future generations? But I believe many Christians make the mistake of caring more for the text its self than for what it represents. How is it possible that those who know best the life and teachings of Jesus can become so preoccupied with headcoverings and translations and speculation about end times? How is it possible that such people are more interested in denouncing those they see as sinful than in loving them?

Look through the New Testament. (Do look, because I may be forgetting.) When Jesus met a "sinner", did he first confront him with his sin? Did he reason with him about the wrongness of his actions, or quote scripture at him, or urge him to turn from his wicked ways? Did he place more emphasis on the sins of the "especially bad" sinners than on those of the "pretty good" ones? Did Jesus ever start a conversation or a relationship by making it clear that he disagreed with the other's lifestyle? Jesus came to everyone on their level, he treated them with dignity, he listened to them, he helped them physically and practically, and he didn't condemn. And he certainly didn't give a shit what the religious people would think when they saw him hanging out with sinners and scum.

Jesus was not about the Bible or the church, he was about people. He didn't sit around pontificating about obscure points of doctrine with the ultra-religious, he brought hope and inclusion and practical wisdom to the oppressed and the godless. Jesus didn't hold his nose or hitch up his skirts as he walked through our world and he was more pissed off by self-righteousness than by wickedness. Jesus came to heal the sick; we've pulled him out of the hospital, scrubbed and groomed him, and made him the patron saint of the germophobes. Jesus was not afraid of sin-cooties or guilt by association. And he didn't place any book or doctrine or religion above the sheep he came to save. The minute our high-minded chapter-and-verse piety gets in the way of being the servants of all, we've abandoned the Gospel of Christ for a gold-foil idol.

(On a related note, I just read an interesting modern take on the Woman at the Well, over here. Thanks to Bruce.)

[+/-] What I'm trying to say is this:

But perhaps I should explain. I've been thinking recently about beauty. I think a lot of my life is a pursuit of beauty - beauty in my actions, beauty in my relationships, beauty in my writing, and so on. I'm using "beauty" rather broadly, I guess, but I feel like there's a strong relationship between visual beauty (and our reaction to it - wonder, I guess) and things like humility, love, wisdom, and joy. Maybe I mean that all good things are just different aspects or expressions of each other, like a single object that is perceived through multiple senses. But I told myself I wouldn't start talking like this.I've decided I don't like beauty being co-opted as a means to some other end. I feel like theists have degraded the beauty in our lives by turning it into some kind of argument for the existence of God. Not that there's anything wrong with feeling that beauty points you toward God, but by making an argument out of it, by subpoenaing beauty to be dispassionately analyzed and debated in defense of an intellectual proposition seems cold and demeaning. I think it would be better if we could each see beauty and let it influence our minds and hearts as it will, but not try to force those influences on others.I hope I'm learning to respect beauty. I remember that I used to have a fantasy about suddenly and inexplicably acquiring the ability to play the piano at the highest level. I have dreams of this nature about all kinds of talents (I suspect they're quite common) but this particular one was largely laid to rest when I got to know a girl who spends hours a day practicing the piano. After that it seemed wrong to want without cost what she has worked so hard for. Love without cost is not love; beauty without cost is not beauty.Someone is going to think too hard about what I'm saying, looking for a logical argument. But I'm not talking about logic here, I'm talking about beauty. Beauty, as I understand it, is of a different substance than logic - it can be felt and perhaps expressed, but not analyzed, not calculated.In high school I read a story in which a farm-girl is kidnapped by a lunatic who's obsessed with beauty. At one point, to distract him, the girl points to the setting sun and mentions that it's beautiful. The lunatic's earnest reply is "God Almighty beautiful - to take your breath away!" I've often reflected that if there's one thing I would be unwilling to give up for any reason - even for God - it's my mind. I treasure my ability to think more than anything else. But I wonder if I wouldn't mind being a madman or a fool if I could feel beauty like that.Sometimes I think knowing beauty is my greatest desire, and sharing beauty with others is my highest calling. At other times the idea makes me feel guilty - my rational mind scolds me for loosing my focus on logic and truth. But I'm increasingly suspicious that the pursuits of beauty and truth are not opposed, nor is one necessarily more valuable or honorable than the other. And maybe beauty and truth are really just the same transcendent object seen from different perspectives. You may call this object what you wish or you may leave it nameless, but understand that no words can accurately convey it's essence. Perhaps it can be best expressed like this:

[+/-] The Paper Pope

[FYI: This post's original title was "The Evangelical Pope". It was meant to be an immediate sequel to this post from June, but it somehow got forgotten and was only recently rediscovered and completed. I read A Generous Orthodoxy over the summer and it surprised me by addressing the exact same issue, though under a slightly catchier title, which I've decided to adopt.]

I've heard a lot of Protestant Evangelical-types bad-mouth Catholics for the whole Pope thing. I guess they don't like the idea of some guy in a big hat telling other Christians what's right and what's wrong. Christians, each of us being priests of God, each of us being indwelt by the Spirit, need no intermediary to inform us of God's will. We should each be able to pray and consult our Bibles and discern the truth for ourselves. (Never mind that we all disagree after doing so. Those who disagree with me must have unconfessed sin or something interfering with their Spirit-radar.)

About that Bible... Oh, first maybe I should say this again just to cover my ass: I like the Bible. It's a good book, and you should all read it. Of course I don't agree with everything it says (neither do you) but on the whole, it's a really useful - even "indispensable" - tool for learning about God.

That said, I wonder if we've made the Bible into something it's not. Picking up on the Pope thing, my guess is that the Catholics like all their church structure with the hierarchy and the traditions and the infallible Pope because it gives them security. Want to know where you stand on a tough issue? Look to the Pope. Want to know how to do Church? Just do what we've always done. And the really great thing about centralized power is that not only do you know what to believe, but you know what everyone else should believe. No need for infighting, no excuse for schisms, nothing but harmony and solidarity. Sure, it doesn't work perfectly, but it works a lot better than anything those fragmented, infighting, oh-so-aptly-named Protestants have come up with.

With the caveat that I've never actually talked to a Catholic about this particular issue, I imagine the following conversation between a Catholic and a Protestant:
The Catholic speaks first. "I know you're suspicious of my faith in the infallibility of the Pope, and you talk about the dangers of trusting in the judgment of one man on spiritual matters, but isn't it more dangerous to leave these matters up to comparatively ignorant and ungodly individuals? I would think you'd be lost without the leadership of one who speaks for God, just as the judge-less Israelites each did what was right in his own eyes. How can you hope to follow God without a God-ordained guide?"

"But we do have a guide," the Protestant would of course reply. "We have the Bible, our instruction manual for life, which is inspired by God, free from error, and contains everything God needs us to know in order to live as He desires. Furthermore, we each have the Holy Spirit, the Counselor, who tells us how to understand the Bible and apply it to our lives."

"Yes, that all sounds very nice, but surely you can see that it doesn't work. The Bible is a pretty confusing guidebook at the best of times. Look around you! Look at all the denominations you Bible-believers have split into. Each one is convinced that their own understanding of Biblical commands is correct and all the others are wrong. Don't you see that well-meaning Christians can no more agree on the meaning of the Bible than secular readers can agree on the meaning of other books?"

To a certain extent I'm quite happy for people to believe that the Bible is absolute truth and strive to understand and apply it. Generally they seem to miss the ugly stuff and come away with ideas centered more or less around love. Generally.

And yet there are always dangers of taking anything to be an unquestionable authority - regardless of whether it really is infallible - especially when that authority is an inanimate object that can't speak for it's self. First of all, we have a tendency to want to remake the Bible in our own image. (I'm not saying you do this. Heavens no! I mean people less in tune with the Spirit than you are.) It's easy to develop our own opinions and then go searching in the Bible for proof that we're right. Of course, this is usually done subconsciously, but I don't think I need to convince you that it is indeed done. (If I do, please let me know.) What's dangerous about this sort of selective reading is that once we find the verse that supports our (unconsciously) pre-formed conclusion, we believe that our opinion is unquestionable TRUTH. In my opinion, an unwavering, unassailable conviction that you're right may be the most dangerous thing in the world. It naturally precludes any further reflection or scrutiny (why bother with logic when you have the word of God?), and leads to patronizing, scorning or hating of those who disagree (imagine being so misguided/stupid/wicked as not to see THE TRUTH). It's also worth noting that these unpleasant side-effects can accompany unquestioning Bible-belief even if you manage to avoid interpreting the Bible through your own preconceptions. And of course, just because you come in with an open mind doesn't mean you'll leave with the correct interpretation. (Well, I guess many people believe that the Spirit won't allow you to be mistaken if you're sincere, but since this belief tends to be held dogmatically, I'm not sure it's worth my time to argue against it.)

I'm honestly not interested in convincing you that the Bible's not infallible. If you can't live without a "fixed point of reference", the Bible probably as good a choice as any. But please don't believe your interpretation of the Bible is infallible.