Every so often, I read something about a war against Christians in America. Since this generic label applies to a majority—about 62%—of Americans, such a war is an incomplete, improbable fiction. The attackers are never identified. Could they be Jews, all 2.4% of them? What about Muslims, all 1.2% of them? The location of the combat zones, the sites of attacks, and the weapons used go unnamed. The contested issues are unstated. Some war.
I know perfectly well that Bible-thumpers, allied podcasters, and some politicians use the word “war” metaphorically and hyperbolically. Still, their use of the word betrays paranoia or opportunism. They have good reason to be paranoid. The number of people identifying as Christians has lately dropped dramatically, about 16% in 18 years. The drop reflects an increase in “nones” and lower rates of Christian identification by younger people. Yet these various drop-outs or never-dropped-ins hardly constitute a hostile force opposing Christianity in a 21st-century religious war. More likely, they do not care enough about Christianity to spend time and energy thinking about it or, for that matter, any other religion. Christian fulminators wage “war” against a nonexistent enemy on a battlefield between their ears.
Paranoia has its uses. Blaming secular influences for the decline in Christian identification, not to mention affiliation, is more comfortable than introspection scrutinizing one’s beliefs and behavior. One influence is the growing influence of science and technology; their mechanistic assumptions on and approaches to the world and human experience have a corrosive effect on theological beliefs. Increasingly, they make centuries-old Christian mysteries of the Eucharist and the Trinity seem weird, not wonderful. Anyone exploring these mysteries might learn that they have pagan origins and were kluges for purposes of proselytizing of Jews and pagans. The idea that wine and bread partaken to celebrate the Eucharist become (Catholic transubstantiation) or coexist with (Protestant consubstantiation) Jesus’ blood and body is strange. Though the Last Supper purports to be a Passover celebration, nothing in Judaism involves eating a god literally or symbolically, as was common practice in pagan religions. The Trinity, the mystery of three persons constituting one god, a compromise between Jewish monotheism and pagan polytheism, is even stranger. I have no idea whether the pagan origins of these mysteries would appeal to or repel someone exploring them.
An uncomfortable truth explaining this decline is the debased or hypocritical example set by so many self-proclaiming Christians. The disparity between Jesus’s central teaching—love for the poor, the dispossessed, the stranger, the enemy—and what these Christians loudly preach and practice—hostility to the impoverished, the homeless, immigrants, the sexually unconventional, minorities—does little to make Christianity morally appealing. Churches trying to retain or gain members, not by Jesus-like service, but by rocking church with music, emphasizing emotional worship, promising worldly success, or rousing prejudices might appeal to some but would likely repel even more, as religiously vacuous or morally vicious. Antithetical to his teachings are bigotry of any kind, pretenses of moral superiority, and Christian nationalism.
Almost all Christian denominations accept either the Nicene or Apostles Creed, which offer statements of theological dogma, and about Jesus’ miraculous birth and miserable death, with nothing about his life or teachings. To this gap in the creeds between his birth and death, denominations respond similarly by filling it but differently by using different messages, which all call Christian. Mainline churches fill it with Jesus’ teachings of tolerance and love of others; fundamentalist churches stuff it with current moral or political issues which are used to rationalize the opposite, intolerance or hate. The Catholic Church straddles this divide.
Fundamentalists use such stuffing inspired less by texts in the New Testament than by texts in the Old Testament (not identical to Holy Scriptures). Their readings of Jewish law, though repudiated by Paul and many church leaders, naïvely misinterpret or perversely misrepresent what they cherry-pick to serve their modern moral or political purposes.
Take, for example, fundamentalists who invoke Leviticus 18:22 to revile those who deviate from heterosexual behavior. To serve their purposes, they misrepresent this proof-text as a strong condemnation of the sin of same-sex behavior. The King James Version reads, “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is an abomination.” The Jewish Tanakh translation reads, “Do not lie with a male as one lies with a woman; it is an abhorrence.” The meaning of “abomination” is a thing disgusting or hateful; of “abhorrence,” a thing repulsive or disgusting. What fundamentalists interpret as a prohibition of homosexual acts—the text makes no mention of lesbian acts—is really guidance reflecting moral revulsion. As such, it lacks the status of a commandment; the acts are not sins but matters of distaste—which opens the door to considering unconventional sexual acts matters of taste. Moreover, fundamentalists ignore that the text exists in a cultural context; it intends to differentiate between what neighboring pagans do and what Jews should not do. That is, it has the status and purpose similar to those of Jewish dietary laws—cultural and social distancing from non-Jews more than religious prohibition.
Jesus was a man of works and faith—his was Judaism—which, in Christianity, led to a problematic relationship between them. Catholics believe justification is by works and faith; Protestants, that it is by faith alone. Works are demonstrable; faith is not, only believed or professed. Anyone can profess a faith, whether sincere or not—which makes it easy to claim a Christian identity. Christians proclaiming their faith without performing works are Christians in name only, or CINOs. I unreasonably suspect that those who conspicuously wear crucifixes—“On her white Breast a sparkling Cross she wore, / Which Jews might kiss, and Infidels adore” (Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock, II, 8)—are CINOs. I reasonably believe that those who accept or express prejudices against others, withhold personal and oppose societal assistance to the disadvantaged, oppose equal rights for individuals or groups of different backgrounds or persuasions, or deplore other peoples’ choices in life or of lifestyles different from their own are CINOs. An example is the late and presidentially lamented Charlie Kirk.
No earthly referee decides between those who differently claim to be Christians, both Jesus followers, Christians of good works and faith, and CINOs, Christians professing faith but opposing the public good and general welfare of the state. Here, to discredit CINO posturing and advance the Christianity of Jesus’ works and faith, Jesus followers, whether Democrats or Republicans, must bear witness to works and faith by calling out the hypocrisy of CINOs and by making greater public efforts to do good works and by casting votes to serve the unfortunate.
No comments:
Post a Comment