"Will you continue in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers?"
From The Baptismal Covenant
in
The Book Of Common Prayer (BCP)
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This question in the Rite of Holy Baptism as found in the Book of Common Prayer baffles me. It follows a question and answer form of the Apostle's Creed as part of the interrogatories asked of a candidate for baptism or confirmation prior to being baptized or confirmed. It baffles me, in part, because the Apostle's Creed is really void of anything the first century apostles taught. So, if not the first century apostles then who? Their later successors like Justin Martyr, Ignatius of Antioch, and Clement of Rome from whom the concept of the Trinity was derived, but the creed, however, was not articulated until in the later part of the fourth century.
It also baffles me because it seems to take precedence over what Jesus' actually taught. There is no mention in any of interrogatories that specifically mentions anything Jesus specifically taught, like loving one's enemies or forgiving someone repeatedly. I not only find that rather odd, but also problematic.
The entire rite of baptism assumes a great deal when it comes to knowing what it means to renounce Satan and all the forces of wickedness that rebel against God, amongst other renunciations, or what it means to follow and obey Jesus Christ as one's Lord without referencing what Jesus had to say about such things. Being raised in and a member of various mainline Christian denominations, there's a vague assumption as to what such things mean. Parents, Godparents, and members of the congregation are quick to say, "I renounce..." when one is asked to renounce something and "I do" to anything one is asked to do without a full disclosure of what agreeing to do actually entails.
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The problem I have with this entry rite into Christianity is that it immediately places emphasis on what the apostles taught about Jesus rather than what Jesus taught. I don't find the teachings of the Jesus as found in the Synoptic Gospels to be synonymous to what the apostles taught. There is no doubt that the whole of the canonical New Testament was editorialized numerous times to make sure that it presented a coherent if not a consistent message regarding the "Good News" in Jesus Christ that is based on the teachings of the apostles. The bad news is that the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth ar, in practice, subordinate to the apostolic teachings of the imperial church of the Roman Empire, which remain the primary focus of virtually all Christian denominations in the twenty-first century.
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The primacy of the apostolic teachings, especially, the letters attributed Paul, the Johannine scriptures, and the Acts of the Apostles have largely shaped Christianity of which the Synoptic Gospels and other letters basically serve as an adjunct to their primacy. After the resurrection stories of the Gospels, Christianity largely becomes a Hellenistic remake of Judaism. In other words, it is a hybrid religion that includes a second coming of the Messiah, modeled after Judaism's belief that the Messiah will come and the use of mystic rituals reminiscent of Greek and Roman mystery rites such as, Holy Communion and Holy Baptism that identify and affirm one as a true member of Christ's body (i.e the Church) as the guarantor of salvation and "Keeper of the Keys to the Kingdom."
I do not see an easy way of recalibrating something that has become entrenched in the fabric of Christianity for almost two thousand years. I can only share my personal perspective of something I find problematic, not only to Christians but to the world. I would like to see the teachings of Jesus as found in the Synoptic Gospels (minus their obvious later editorial comments) given a primary role in shaping both Christianity's purpose in this world. For one thing, I do not see Jesus' teachings aimed at saving us from sin but rather changing how we effectively deal with it; as in, the use of Jesus' view of unconditional forgiveness and love.
Secondly, I see Jesus' teachings as an attempt to realize his vision of the Kingdom of God in this life; to save the world we live in from the (evil) "devices and desire of our hearts."(from the Rite I confession, BCP) I find it hard to believe that Jesus thought his life's purpose was to offer himself as a sacrifice to God for the sins of others. In Jesus' day, such a concept was already questionable. In the Gospel of Matthew (9:13), Jesus quotes Hosea saying that God did not delight sacrifice. If that is so, how much more would God would refrain from offering God's son?
This does not exclude the likelihood that Jesus knew that his preaching and teachings could and most likely would identify him as a threat to the status quo and the powers that be. That he would end up crucified or stoned to death was a possibility that followed him throughout his ministry. So talking about his death with his closest disciples and followers is likely, given the times in which they lived.
That his eventual execution at the hands of the Romans was understood as a sacrifice strikes me as an after-the-fact rationalization of it serving some larger purpose from which the resurrection story evolved. "Jesus lives!" became the launching pad for the apostolic teachings about Jesus in which he transcends the finite realm of this life and ascends to the infinite throne of God.
Ironically, the teachings of Jesus which define a way of life for this life, became superseded by a focus on living this life in preparation for a next life. Forgiveness, the primary healing tool of Jesus for transforming this life becomes replaced by relying on Jesus' atoning sacrifice on the cross as the means of forgiving sins once and for all. Belief in such an ideological ideal virtually renders us hopelessly impotent to do anything about the evil and ills we create and commit.
According to apostolic teachings, all one has to do is believe that one's sins are forgiven along with willfully trying to avoid engaging in sin again - AND JUST LIKE THAT - we're back to square one as being the miserable sinners we are condemned to be due to being genetically doomed to sin from birth due to our parents lustful act of conceiving us (or so Augustine of Hippos would have us believe). Let's face it, we Christians willfully sin every day and then act as if we can't do anything about it, except to keep on confessing our unworthiness and asking God to forgive us for Jesus' sake, a task that eventually becomes old an relegated to a weekly confession of sins.
The truth is , according to scripture, God doesn't want to act like a divine bookkeeper who keeps track of every infraction we commit, which lead to the fact that, according to Jesus, we can forgive ourselves; not as a means ignoring the bad things we have done, but as a means to move beyond them, so that we can help others move beyond their wrongdoing until the whole pointlessness of continuing to do harm to oneself and others is an engrained in us. We are, in a global sense, addicted to causing pain in order to experience relief from it. This addiction to suffering is humanity's darkest side. What keeps us there is a religious notion that we can't do anything about it, except suffer through it nobly or not, and hope for a better life in some form of hereafter.
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Perhaps the reason that Jesus' teachings never enjoyed the attraction that the teachings of the apostles about Jesus have is because unconditional forgiveness and love are not that attractive to the vast majority of human beings; as they require that one puts aside one's ego to make room for the other who may not appreciate another person's effort to be forgiving. Loving one's enemies can seem impractical which will likely lead to misery rather than relieve it. Loving others as oneself can be viewed as bordering on the narcissistic which can lead to misunderstandings. The reality is as soon as Jesus was no longer present on this earth, much of what occupied nascent Christian thought was merely trying to figure out who Jesus was and when he was coming back to finish the job he started.
The resurrection story did much to diminish the relevance of Jesus' teachings about this life. Treating Jesus' death as a sacrifice for the sins of the world made my forgiving others optional and loving one's neighbor was relegated to loving one's fellow Christians, as in mandate that Jesus gave his disciples in the Gospel of John, "Love one another as I have loved you." (John 13:34). Why waste love on those who, because of their disbelief in Jesus being the only begotten Son of God, are already condemned as noted in John 3:18? Johannine theology virtually wipes out the teachings of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels. Between Johannine and Pauline theology there is virtually nothing one can do to save oneself and the world we live in. Either you are saved or you are not. This is the fatalism that is intrinsic in belief-based faith. If you believe correctly, you are saved. If you don't, you are condemned either because you don't believe or are destined not to believe.
Wasn't trying to realize the Kingdom of God in this world what Jesus was training his disciples to do in the Synoptic Gospels? Wasn't his collected teachings described in the Sermon on the Mount and the Plain and his parables designed to motivate us to realize the Kingdom of God in our time and in our world?
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There have been those throughout history who have tried to put the teachings of Jesus into action only to find themselves ostracized by ecclesial authority and persecuted as heretics. Jesus' formula for changing the world is by grabbing hold of the Kingdom of God and simply loving others as one wants to feel loved and to forgive as one wants to be forgiven. It's as simple as that and as hard as that.
The reward for doing that is a better world, a world at peace with itself, a world in which everyone acts as if they have taken the Hippocratic oath, to refrain from intentionally doing harm. Jesus actually goes beyond Hippocrates by forgiving those who do harm as a means to heal the wounds that have caused them to wound others. This obviously is not going to happen overnight. It involves a commitment to forgive out of a recognition that every human is capable of and vulnerable to committing harm. As such, every human is worthy of being forgiven because not to forgive is a form of doing harm.
Think of the impact this would have on our personal and global affairs. People and nations forgiving other people and nations without having to resort to retaliation. How much easier would it be to negotiate peace terms if forgiveness was always on the table, rather than threats. I realize that none of this will come naturally to people because all of us, to some degree or another, have been subjected to victimization in one form or another because our systems of governance within the secular world and the religious world relies on the fear of punishment as the best deterrent to acts of violence; the belief that the best way to fight a human fire is with a human on fire. Perhaps that's the best way to stop a wild fire, but it is not the best way to stop a conflagration between humans. Our history shows us that wars to end all wars only leads to more wars.
The only way to stop all wars is for one side of a conflict not to retaliate and risk annihilation at the hands of an enemy. I know this sounds ridiculous and unimaginable. It strikes me as such just writing it down.
But I cannot think of way to avoid war unless some nation is willing to put that on the table - "If you strike us, we will not strike back." Jesus put this in terms of personal conflict and turning the other cheek. What will the rest of the world make of such a solution. Is it madness or genius?
If the nuclear arms race has taught us anything it is the capability of nuclear armed nations to destroy the entire world. Limited warfare ultimately will lead to their use. It is only a matter of time. In a sense we are already being held hostage to such an inevitability as world leaders threaten its use openly or in covert ways Revenge and retaliations must be off the table and all religions have a role to play in making this happen. A religion that does not make this priority of their teachings and practices is not part of the problem. It is the problem.
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The apostolic teachings in Christianity; such as, the epistles of Paul and those of other church leaders in the early centuries of Christianity had no problem with the Roman empires use of force; especially, if it was used to rid the empire of what orthodox catholicism deemed heretical. Every religion and ideological school of thought that considers itself to be the one and only true (orthodox) perspective tends to be okay with eliminating what it considers heretical.
If Jesus was critical of anything, it was the religious leaders of his day who failed to address the basic needs of people to be unconditionally cared for; to be unconditionally loved and forgiven. In the case of the Pharisees, it was their attempt to create a morally correct life by establishing a rule-based religion that covered almost every aspect of Jewish life which many Jews were unable to afford and thus were pushed to the fringe of society. For the Sadducees, it was finding ways to perpetuate their social status as keepers of the Temple, by creating a monetary system that enriched the Temples coffer and their personal coffers, through currency trading. The result was the uncontrolled exploitation of faithful Jews by those who used their positions as money changers and sold animals for temple sacrifice to line their pockets with ill gotten gains
Jesus wasn't having any of that. In fact, Jesus was less concerned with the Romans than he was with the religious hypocrisy and heartless behaviors exhibited by the leaders of various Jewish sects. Jesus was vulnerable to acting out. His anger got the better of him when he cleansed the temple of the money changers and those who sold animals for sacrificial purposes in the temple. Jesus was human, after all, inspire of the apostolic teachings that said otherwise. If Jesus was vulnerable then so are we, but like Jesus we can recover, we can be forgiving even to the point of forgiving those who kill us or prefer that we are dead.
I don't believe in a sinless human. We humans are not perfect. Neither was Jesus. Jesus famously advised that we be perfect like our father in heaven is perfect. He didn't say be perfect as I am perfect. He never claimed perfection and neither should we. We need to live with our faults by forgiving them, individually and collectively. Jesus never stated that forgiveness is a one time bargain as the apostles claimed it to be after his crucifixion. Instead he told is disciples that forgiveness is never off the table, no matter how many times we are called upon to do so.
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Unconditional love is exhibited in unconditional forgiveness. Unconditional forgiveness requires a strength and a will that paradoxically rejects the use of force and the need to be acknowledged as being right about something. It requires a letting go of self to increase a greater sense of SELF; in other words, to be perfect as God is, kenotically speaking, perfect. The teachings and way of Jesus must take center stage if Christianity and world are to survive. Other religions must also find their way to reject religious sanctioning of violence in any form and to instill in their followers the need to unconditionally forgive and love the other as oneself.
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Norm
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