The Jesus of the Oppressed

In his book A Generous Orthodoxy, Brian McLaren, one of the founding fathers of the emerging church movement, writes that in his life as a Christian he has encountered and gotten to know several different Jesuses:

For conservative Protestants and Roman Catholics, then, Jesus saves individuals through the cross and resurrection; for Eastern Orthodox followers, Jesus saves the world through the incarnation ; for liberal Protestants and Anabaptists, Jesus saves through his teaching and example. But in addition, Anabaptists uniquely emphasize Jesus' role in connecting and leading a community of disciples. For them the church is not at heart an institution...with hierarchies and policies, headquarters, and bureaucracy. Above all, the church is a continuation and extension of the original band of disciples, a group of people learning the ways of Jesus as a voluntary community.

There is one more Jesus that McLaren has met, a man that is in many ways closer to the Jesus of the Bible and that informs the beliefs and practices of many Christians of the emergent church: "the Jesus of liberation theology."

In my readings and travels (especially in Latin America), I have been exposed to many committed Christians who believe that Marxism and Communism were filling the gap that should have been filled by Christians--Christians who understood the revolutionary social and political implications of the teaching and examples of Jesus, whose gospel was good news to the poor along with a challenge toward generosity for the rich.

Because Christians failed to preach and practice this dimension of the gospel, secular movements arose to fill the gap. Sadly, because these secular movements had ideology without truly spiritual good news, the poor received from these secular movements yet another disappointment and yet another delay in experiencing true liberation. Sadly, because these secular movements often preached that violence could overcome violence, even if they had succeeded in liberating the poor from poverty, they could never have liberated the poor from violence. Nonviolent liberation theology sought to rediscover the Jesus who is the hero to the poor and oppressed, and the prophet who bravely confronts the establishments of power and privilege.

....

The Jesus of liberation theology, firmly rooted in the struggles of the first century, inspires Christians to continue his work and mission in all centuries throughout history, believing that history is exactly the venue into which God's kingdom comes and in which God's will can increasingly be done.

The Princes of the Catholic Church would do well at this time to study and emulate the example of the thoughtful McLaren, along with others in the emerging church movement (oh, and not to mention Jesus), and turn their attention away from summary judgments and acts of excommunication that make them appear pathetically out of touch with the reality of Christian lives and direct it to the suffering poor and oppressed of their own countries and of countries where poverty and suffering of Christians and non-Christians alike is the main feature of life.

And if, for whatever supposedly valid theological reason, the term "liberation theology" is anathema to "true Catholic teaching," then let's, for Jesus' sake, call it something else.

How about "love"?

Jesus and Sin

I am reading Spencer Burke's book A Heretic's Guide to Eternity, in which he promotes (his view of) spirituality over (his take on) religion in the postmodern age. Burke is one of the founding members of the emerging church movement. While I do not agree with everything he says (so far) in this book, I find some of his ideas beautifully resonant. For example, in a section of Chapter Three ("Grace and the God Factor") called Grace, sin, and spirituality, he says the following about Jesus and sin:

Sin would perhaps be better understood in our culture if it were presented as pursuing self-interest at the expense of the well-being of the larger (or smaller) horizons of our existence, whether through self-abuse or through lack of concern for the world in which we live.

Instead, sin has often been presented as a violation of the rules and regulations of religion. In Christianity, Jesus is held up as the model of sinless living, the ultimate example to which all humanity should aspire. "Jesus," it is said, "was tempted in all points as we are yet was without sin." This concept of Jesus as a sinless individual permeates Christian theology. But was Jesus really sinless? He certainly seems to have violated a number of the rules and interpretations of the Law that his contemporaries regarded as huge sins. He violated the Sabbath and excused his disciples for their violations. He interpreted the meaning of the Sabbath by telling the story of King David's questionable use of the Law in order to feed his men. He repeatedly talked to the unclean, the unlovely, and the unrepentant.

As I see it, Jesus may not have sinned against God, but he certainly committed sins against the religion of his day. Jesus lived his sinless life in grace - and that grace often transgressed the moral codes of religion. The challenge for followers of Jesus is to reframe the story and offer society a new understanding of exactly what grace is and what it means for us all.

What Burke is saying here reminds me of Hans Kung's remarks about how Jesus might relate to the Church authorities of today and of Marcus Borg's take on the subversive compassion of the pre-Easter Jesus. Again, it seems to me that we have a significant disconnect between what religious historians and theologians have determined Jesus really was about and what institutional Christianity requires us to believe. As for myself, the more I read about, the more I observe, the more I think about the Catholic Church, the more inclined I am to "find a congenial, compassionate way to live inside of it and yet outside of it," as Father Richard Rohr tells us.

Church and Empire

Further to my comments in yesterday's blog posting, here is James Carroll's view of the Church as power structure, taken from the Introduction to his moving and brilliant memoir Practising Catholic.

Apart from the museums that anchor the great cities of Europe and America, the Roman Catholic Church is what remains of "Christendom," the generating aesthetic and intellectual tradition of Western civilization. Offshoots of the Protestant Reformation claim that same Christian heritage, but the Catholic Church, in its institutional DNA if not in its ideology, has served as the vehicle for carrying key elements of the Roman Empire forward into history, much as Rome carried the achievements of ancient Greece forward. Even today, in its organization, judicial system, official language, attachment to material culture, and elevation of the classic virtues, the Church embodies that first Romanitas.

Leaving theology aside for the moment, this worldly rootedness has been a source of the Church's exceptional longevity as well as of its global reach. The diocesan structure of its organization, for example - with bishops and cardinals exercising over local churches an authority derived from the transcendent power center - is a repetition of Rome's proconsul method of governance. The way the Church's finances are organized, with independent dioceses feeding support to that center; the way the Church's diplomacy is structured, with papal legates dispatched to world capitals; the way the cult of the leader is maintained, with the bishop of Rome regarded as the deity's vicar - all of this echoes the methods of the imperium, a system that is otherwise long gone.

St. Peter's Basilica, after all, is an architectural duplication of the palace of the emperor; indeed the word "basilica" derives from the basil wreath with which, in primordial Rome, the ruler was crowned. Meanwhile, Catholic doctrine is grounded in philosophical propositions that came into their own in the ancient world, which is why any revision of that doctrine - is it even posssible? - would amount to an extraordinary intellectual and spiritual transformation. Down through the ages the tension between the papacy and the councils of the Church, which across two thousand years were convened, on average, once each century, can be seen to have been analagous to the tension between Caesar and the Roman Senate, which ended tragically. Indeed, the Church has, if only accidentally, carried forward the internal conflict between republic and empire, a tension which, in the Church's case, while yet to be resolved, has become dramatic in the contemporary push-pull between the laity and lower clergy on one side, and the hierarchy on the other. For all these reasons, Catholicism continues to be an object of fascination. And, admittedly, of repugnance.

Grave moral failings of the Church became evident in the era since my birth, and those moral failings were compounded by further mistakes in recent years. I reflect on this dark legacy, showing what it meant to me as I was repeatedly forced to confront it. But I aim less at judgmental criticism than at a loving act of remembrance, recalling Catholics - and myself - to what they have been at their best. A tradition centered on social justice, accommodation of immigrants, the work of peace, sacramental respect for creation, liturgical beauty, a global vision, and the consolations of faith - all of this weighs as much in the scale of history as spiritual imperialism, scandal, and hipocrisy.

"Meanwhile, Catholic doctrine is grounded in philosophical propositions that came into their own in the ancient world, which is why any revision of that doctrine - is it even posssible? - would amount to an extraordinary intellectual and spiritual transformation." It is not difficult to imagine, in light of this statement, that Vatican II was perhaps a mere "chipping away" at this ancient doctrinal edifice and that more chipping is needed before the Church can be brought into the modern world.

Here is what Carroll says, in Chapter One of Practising Catholic, about doctrinal change:

Jesus was a peasant of no social standing, but his actions and words were compelling. His friends, responding to him as a teacher of Jewish faith and as a resistor of Roman occupation, were devoted to him and continued to revere him after his death. Because the first followers of Jesus let him down when he needed them most, the community that grew out of their inability to let go of their affection for him was defined above all by its awareness of failure. Yes, what we call sin is a fact, but so is forgiveness. Those followers had forgiveness from Jesus himself, as so many of the stories about him declare. Therefore the Church is the community in which forgiveness is always necessary and always possible.

It matters that only gradually did his friends come to think of Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, and, even more gradually, as the Son of God. It matters that their sacred texts evolved slowly out of oral traditions, and then that the sacred texts themselves were only gradually selected from among many others, equally honored but never officially deemed "inspired." This book will take up the story of these developments. The point here is that once we understand that doctrines evolved over time, we stop regarding them as timeless. The evolution of doctrine can continue.

What Carroll is saying here seems to make so much sense. But then, unlike the current pope and most before him, I do not consider myself to be the guardian of sacred tradition.

Holiness and Compassion

What Marcus Borg tells us about the compassionate Jesus has the potential for practical everyday application. In our daily lives and in our interactions with others, we tend to focus on holiness—our own supposed holiness and our requirement that others be holy as well—leading to that self-righteous, holier-than-thou mindset of resentment and to egoistic acting out, not to mention a failure to forgive. If we think we are holy (i.e. pure), the faults of others, no matter how small, stick in our craw and poison our relationships, albeit usually temporarily (but sometimes the sins of others become so overwhelming to us that we feel we can no longer associate with them). We claim that they have written themselves out of our lives. Meanwhile, the friend or relative we have been so terribly—and cumulatively— offended by usually has no idea what the hell has got into us. Holiness in this sense separates us from life because we have closed ourselves off from love, at least for a time.

Practising true compassion—the compassion of Christ—is much harder than practising holiness. It is hard because it requires that we let go of ourselves, and letting go of ourselves means stepping away from our petty issues, from our pet peeves, from our perpetual belief that we are right and everyone else is wrong. Compassion calls for humility, for putting others before ourselves, not because we want them to love us but because we love them. Compassion calls for forgiveness; even when the other is “wrong,” if we are compassionate we will look beyond the wrong to the reason behind it: perhaps the other person is under stress, perhaps they are grieving a loss, perhaps they are preoccupied with beautiful, creative thoughts.

During Holy Week we hear again and again of the compassion of Jesus; even in the most agonizing moments of his life he forgave. How happy we would be and how happy would those around us be if we thought daily of Christ’s compassion and consciously tried to imitate it.

Jesus, Compassion, and Homosexuality

I am currently reading Marcus Borg's Meeting Jesus AGAIN for the First Time: The Historical Jesus and the Heart of Contemporary Faith. Chapter Three of this fascinating and enlightening book is entitled "Jesus, Compassion, and Politics." Here Borg claims that the compassion so evident in the teaching and in the public life of Jesus "was more than a quality of God and an individual virtue: it was a social paradigm, the core value for life in community." Jesus' concept of compassion was in opposition to the predominant Jewish paradigm of the day, which was holiness ("Be holy as God is holy"). The issue that reflected this opposition was the law of purity and its social and political, as well as its religious, implications. In the Judaism of Jesus' time, "holiness was understood to mean 'separation from everything unclean'...[and] [t]he ethos of purity produced a politics of purity--that is, a society structured around a purity system."

The purity system marginalized those who were considered to be the most impure: occupational groups such as tax collectors and shepherds; people who were not considered to be physically whole, such as "the maimed, the chronically ill, lepers, eunuchs, and so forth"; and the "abjectly poor." Women were considered generally less pure than men, and gentiles were "impure and unclean."

But according to Borg, "[i]n the message and activity of Jesus, we see an alternative social vision: a community shaped not by the ethos and politics of purity, but by the ethos and politics of compassion." Jesus presented a different concept of purity, one in which inner purity was to be more valued than purity on the outside: "There is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile." Both the teachings of Jesus and his activities were a "challenge to the purity system." He healed lepers and hemorrhaging women and ate meals with tax collectors and sinners. For Jesus, compassion always trumped purity.

In a section of the chapter entitled Spirit, Compassion, and Us, Borg says the following:

The intra-Jewish battle between Jesus and the advocates of the purity system can be seen as a battle over two different ways to interpret Scripture. Both he and his critics stood in the tradition of Israel and sought to be faithful to it. The elites of his day read Scripture in accordance with the paradigm of holiness as purity. Jesus read it in accordance with the paradigm of compassion. Each provided a lens through which the tradition was seen. It was thus a hermeneutical battle, a conflict between two very different ways of interpreting the sacred traditions of Judaism. It was not, of course, the kind of academic hermeneutical argument that occurs today in scholarly circles. Rather it was a hermeneutical battle about the shape of a world, and the stakes were high.

The same hermeneutical struggle goes on in the church today. In parts of the church there are groups that emphasize holiness and purity as the Christian way of life, and they draw their own sharp boundaries between the righteous and sinners. It is a sad irony that these groups, many of which are seeking very earnestly to be faithful to Scripture, end up emphasizing those parts of Scripture that Jesus himself challenged and opposed. An interpretation of Scripture faithful to Jesus and the early Christian movement sees the Bible through the lens of compassion, not purity.

To use a specific example, I am convinced that much of the strongly negative attitude toward homosexuality on the part of some Christians has arisen because, in addition to whatever non-religious homophobic reasons may be involved, homosexuality is seen (often unconsciously) as a purity issue. For these Christians, there's something "dirty" about it, boundaries are being crossed, things are being put together that do not belong together, and so forth. Indeed, homosexuality was a purity issue in ancient Judaism. The prohibition against it is found in the purity laws of the book of Leviticus.

It seems to me that the shattering of purity boundaries by both Jesus and Paul should also apply to the purity code's perception of homosexuality. Homosexual behavior should therefore be evaluated by the same criteria as heterosexual behavior. It also seems to me that the passage in which Paul negates the other central polarities of his world ["In Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male nor female."] also means "In Christ there is neither straight nor gay." Granted, Paul didn't say that, but the logic of "life in the Spirit" and the ethos of compassion imply it.

One can only pray for the coming of the day on which the Catholic hierarchy chooses the ethos of compassion over what Marcus Borg calls "a purity system constituted by external boundaries." One does of course assume - compassionately - that Church attitudes toward and teachings on homosexuality do not involve "non-religious homophobic reasons" for such attitudes and teachings.