SAVING CHRISTIANITY

This may seem like an odd topic for a post.  To some Christians this idea may strike them as offensive, to non-Christians it may be considered pointless.  I can imagine a large number of Christians who believe that Christianity is eternal and in no need of being saved and a large number of non-Christians who feel life and the world might be better without it.

As I have said in past posts (click here and here), religions as something we humans have created. Religions emerge from a void in our understanding which is expressed in the perennial question, "Why?"

For instance:  Why do we exist?  Why did something that happened happen?  Why is there evil?

The reality is we don't let such questions hang, we give them answers, and with those answers come derivative meanings applied to other existential crises that continue to invoke the perennial question and it's sequential questions,  how, what, and who.

That religions emerged from our collective attempts at understanding ourselves and the world in which we live over the eons is what makes us the religious animals we have evolved into, addicted to the pursuit of finding answers to impossible questions.

Evidence of this can be found in all theistic literature.  For example, in the Judeo-Christian scriptures we read of Abraham's and Sarah's questioning laugh at hearing Sarah would bear a child at her old age, of Moses' questioning who was sending him to free the Israelites, of Mary's question regarding how she would give birth as a virgin, and of Jesus' question on the cross regarding why he was forsaken.

New religions evolve from older religions as new existential questions arise.  As I have mentioned before, science is itself a religious exercise seeking to find answers to impossible questions in order to fill the void in understanding our reality.

IS CHRISTIANITY WORTH SAVING?

It is -

But if Christianity is going to survive, it needs to evolve. Some might ask what it is being saved from.

The answer to that question is simply saving it from itself, from its own meltdown.  Christianity is in a fractured state that is increasingly fractal in scope with new denominations popping up every time a group of Christians within a group of Christians disagree about something they can't or don't want to resolve.

Demagoguery is rampant on the ever twigging-out evangelical stage where personalities can loom larger than God for a moment. When they pass on or more likely become exposed as the fraudulent individuals they are, their followers either find another larger than life personality to cling to for awhile or join the unaffiliated Nones.  A few might trickle back into a mainline denomination.

The Church of Personality is a difficult fix.

In fact, the more twigged-out an evangelical type church becomes the less it becomes recognizable as Christian in a substantive sense.

The Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and mainline Protestant churches are in the best position to save Christianity. They have stood the test of time and have, for the most part, avoided The Church of Personality. Their ability to do so, however, is hindered by their traditions of form and structure and a shared reluctance to speak honestly to those sitting in their pews for fear of losing members. There are, however, some within these denominations who are being honest, but there is a need by all mainline churches to redefine themselves both in terms of substance and function in an effort to present an honest theology to their members and the world.

When  speaking of a change in theological substance, I'm not talking about creating new theologies, ex nihlo, but rather looking deeply into the theological traditions that already exist on which to build fresh theological perspectives; ones that seek common ground and a shared theological language when addressing  the issues of the day.

I believe such perspectives exist, but they are likely buried beneath a mound of doctrinal baggage that has accumulated over the centuries or has been sublimated by ecclesial form and structure.  The other challenge is that most people seated in a church pew are largely ill informed about Christianity in general, especially those who attend doctrinally biased, navel gazing Bible studies.

I think it is safe to say that most Christians do not possess a critical understanding of Christianity.  Most view the Holy Bible as words given by God rather than words about God. Most have been indoctrinated not to question it, to just to believe it even though they struggle with understanding it.

A critical understanding of Christianity is essential to its salvation.  People of the Book should avoid becoming people by the book, at all costs. This is particularly difficult for book-based religions. So let's examine the difference between "of" and "by" the book as it applies to Christianity.

PEOPLE OF THE BOOK

A good place to start is with using Richard Hooker's three-legged stool regarding ecclesial polity as a model.  Hooker's masterful work is a chore to get through and my intent here is not to attempt to explain it but simply use his metaphor to present my thoughts on this subject.

Scripture

Properly understood, scripture is a collection of varied writings and literary types. They were written in different time periods, some of which addressed issues of the day in which they were written or reflect past incidences that were part of a much older oral tradition. Scripture is also a repository of wisdom. All of these writings speak of the relationship between human kind and God and how that relationship shapes our relationships with one another.

The Holy Bible cannot be fully appreciated in the breadth of its scope as the "Word of God." Rather, it is best grasped as words about our these relationships as seen through a lens focused on a particular tribe of people, the Israelites.  Christian scriptures simply opens this lens on the world stage. As such, scripture acts a viewfinder, a lens for looking at our world and framing the questions we should ask rather than looking at it for the answers.

Tradition

Hooker's three pronged approach to ecclesial polity reminds us that tradition refines our inquiries in any theological discourse.  My interpretation of this approach is that while scripture is foundational to Christianity, tradition is the repository of Christianity's collective wisdom that results from a distillation of scripture and experience, guided by what Christians identify as the work of the Holy Spirit, the active Wisdom of God, in the endeavor to search the pathways through the problems faced throughout our history as a means of finding a pathway through a current situation. Tradition, in this sense, is not about form or structure.  Tradition is about function and substance.

Reason

Reason is essential in staying clear of becoming people by the book.  To begin with, reason needs to be placed in the sequential framework that reflects Jesus' circular understanding of process (the first coming last and the last becoming first). Using this as a model places scripture, the first amongst sources, secondary to reason as the needed awareness to access scripture and tradition in seeking solutions.

Reason is what we bring to the table, our God-evolved analytic and intuitive minds. Once we have properly identified the question (scripture), we can access the collective wisdom (tradition) to determine if there are functional or substantive solutions that apply, but in the final analysis, given all that has been discerned, it is up to our informed and wisdom-guided minds to decide; to add to the collective wisdom, to allow the Word to live in a new and meaningful ways, which may then reach beyond the reasoning logic of the time in ways we could not have predicted, that reveal the mind of God.

In this way Christians maintain the nomen of being "People of the Book."  People of the Book are engaged in the alchemy of turning questions into wise solutions.

PEOPLE BY THE BOOK

People by the Book don't like questions.  Their answers to any perceived problem is to go directly to the Book and get the answer even if the situation of the day has no relation to the situation addressed over two thousand years ago.

The concept of Biblical inerrancy has rendered the Holy Bible both inaccessible and unassailable. The result is a form of Bible idolatry or Bible blindness, treating the Bible as God's direct communique on how to solve any problem or seeing every human event as directly related to something (largely prohibited) in the Bible.

One can see examples of this, particularly in the United States, where bible passages are taken out of context and displayed on protest placards as the solution to uncritically examined situations, a sign of those who are People by the Book.

When faced with a perceived existential crises, there is a tendency for many people to seek definitive, quick fix solutions.  They are attracted to displays of power, either in the form of someone who promises to keep the "bad people" away or someone who appeals to the sense of God's power and righteous judgment, who will lay waste His creation; punishing the many unrighteous in order to save the righteous few as a means to make a new creative order.

This us not the fatherly God of Jesus's teachings.

This is the God of fascism.

This form of nihilistic righteousness has been slowly eroding the function and substance of Christianity since its inception.   Unfortunately, it hasn't been until recently that some within Christianity are seeing the effects of its own meltdown.

Perhaps a better question is whether Christianity can be saved.

Yes!

SO...  HOW?

In a word, honesty.  It is only in being honest that Christianity will have any relevancy, any ability to heal our war torn world.

Truthfulness is in rare supply because it has been associated over the centuries as meaning right belief.

This needs to be undone quickly. There is a desperate need for people to be able to differentiate between belief and faith and facts and truths.

For instance, we need to understand that what one believes has no actual impact on what is apart from one's own reaction to those personal beliefs. As Christians we are prompted to walk by faith, not by sight (not by our ideological beliefs).

We simply, as a species, must have this capacity in order to survive, and here is where theistic religion can be helpful, if it strives to be honest.  In the case of Christianity, this must start by engaging in a critical examination of its most foundational teachings about Jesus's birth, life, death, resurrection and differentiating them from what is likely to be Jesus's actual teachings.

No theistic religion can afford to persist in insisting that improbable events serve as answers to impossible questions.

To this end every religion must embrace the concept of myth as an essential element within their theologies. I realize this notion flies in the face of most monotheistic religions who take issue with the concept of mythology, especially as applicable to their particular branch of monotheism.

All theistic religions have their "personalities" that became larger than any other humans, who are viewed as synonymous with God or reverenced as God's right hand envoy. This is understandable. It is hard to relate to an imageless divinity that is so pervasive and yet intimate with us. We imbue God with an avatar-like, human personality we can readily relate to.

Imbuing such personalities with divine traits or imbuing God with human traits is the stuff that myths are made of.

No single person can or should be placed above any other human being in this regard; including Jesus, Mary, Mohammed, Moses, Elijah, or Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha). All of them have been subjected to a mythological makeover in order to personify God or give God a personality we can relate to.

Only God is holy (other) and no single person compares, none. Collectively, however, we reflect the creative activity that is God, we are all, each and every person a uniquely rendered incarnation of God and we need to start wrapping our brains around that concept and the concept  that God is a verb, not a noun, not a thing. God purely IS and is always Being or Becoming.

In this respect Judaism has a head start, because Judaism has had to be honest about its existence and it's faith beyond any belief in order to survive. Its insistence on prohibiting the making of an image to represent God underscores that we, the collective we, are the only image needed to understand God. Being able to wrap our minds around that would give us a totally new understanding of our world and who we humans are.

No other religion has encountered repeated existential crises and survived as has Judaism.  In the process it has had to ask a lot of questions that were shaped by the Hebrew scriptures and the experiences they encountered throughout their history.  These question and debates between their scholars resulted in texts that reflect the cumulative wisdom in texts such as the Talmud and Midrash.

Christianity must adopt such a questioning and discerning process. We must ingest and digest the teachings of Jesus who raised the value of every individual human being to that of being a uniquely rendered child of God (a deeper sense of being made in the image of God) as opposed to being mired and tied to the teachings about Jesus being God's only begotten Son (originally, I suspect, a somewhat subversive teaching  meant to poke the imperial cult of the Roman emperor being that and which then became codified as a central tenant of orthodox Christianity during the Council of Nicea in 325 CE).

In addition, Christianity must change its theological emphasis from the next world in order to save this world, to redeem and restore it to the intended glory of its creator, as must all theistic religions do in their theologies.  What happens after this life must simply be left in God's hands.

Christianity must focus on bringing what Jesus called the Kingdom of God, the peaceable kingdom, to fruition in tangible ways. Doing so is the only means by which Christianity will have any relevancy; any ability to save itself, any ability to help save the world we currently live in.


Until next time, stay faithful.


P.S. In my next posts I will begin examining the evolution of Christianity, starting with, "The Mystery of Faith."