And Now for the Real Issue
I have been amazed by the chord my last post seemed to stike. I think so many of us are really at a point of crisis about the Church - I'm sure there have been hundreds of such periods of crisis in the past and our faith desperately needs them. Lets see this one through.
In the interest of that goal, allow to me take us a little deeper into the rabbit hole of Western Christianity:
"Literary critic Harold Bloom has claimed for years that Americans' intense emphasis on personalized contact with the divine exceeds the bounds of Christianity proper and tends towards Gnosticism."
This is a quote - from an old edition of Time magazine (Dec. 22, 2003, pg 49) - that punched me in the gut last week while I was out of town. The story was discussing the rising popularity of heretical Christian documents and seemingly dead off-shoots of the main-line church (Gnosticism, Marcionism etc.). There was some interesting discussion in the article surrounding some phrases like, "our accelerating narcissistic spirituality".
This is something that has really been on my mind, particularly since becoming more aware of the supposedly mass move out of church and into "personal priesthood": Is there a scriptural place for our catch cry - "My personal relationship with Christ/God"? Is our obsessively individual ideal - the ideal that, when it is really followed through, makes each of us into a tiny church unto ourselves - an ideal of Christ's? Should we really say, "Christianity is not a religion but a relationship"?
(I intend to look into this from a scriptural standpoint and I would love to know where to start.)
posted by Lian at 5:27 pm
18 Comments:
The interesting thing about your comment, Darren, is that I don't know where in Scripture you'd find support for "me and HE" kind of stuff. Through the entirety of the Bible I see God working on groups. One priest sacrificed and asked forgiveness for all of Israel. God forgave the entire group of people. Even in the New Testament, Christ's passion is obviously for the body of believers. Of course being part of that body requires individual choices. So there is a dichotomy. It is dangerous to assume that "I" am the end-all-beat-all of what Christ did. He did what he did to redeem all of mankind, and lucky me to be a part of it...but I am only that...a part of it. A relationship with His body is essential in having a relationship with Him. I'm sure that God cares how we relate/commune/live with Him, and part of that is relating/communing/living with His people.
erika
9:28 am
muerto lives!
5:25 pm
Dude “daren” what about Luke 10:25-37 25 And a lawyer stood up and put Him to the test, saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" 26 And He said to him, "What is written in the Law? How does it read to you?" 27 And he answered, "YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND; AND YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF." 28 And He said to him, "You have answered correctly; DO THIS AND YOU WILL LIVE." 29 But wishing to justify himself, he said to Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" 30 Jesus replied and said, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers, and they stripped him and beat him, and went away leaving him half dead. 31 "And by chance a priest was going down on that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32 "Likewise a Levite also, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 "But a Samaritan, who was on a journey, came upon him; and when he saw him, he felt compassion, 34 and came to him and bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them; and he put him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 "On the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said, `Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I return I will repay you.' 36 "Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers' hands?" 37 And he said, "The one who showed mercy toward him." Then Jesus said to him, "Go and do the same."
Yea its me and Jesus but not just that I am responsible for loving my brother and I will be held accountable for that.
“Sunday morning is a meeting that my Church puts together to test me out.”
corey
12:25 pm
if you define religion as man's attempt to merit gods favor in order to recieve mercy or good crops or a novena answered, i vote for the relationship. our tenents differ from all others in that we, as followers and devotees of christ, understand from the get-go that our attemps in that regard are hideous. thereby we appropriate his finished work. but but but...if we are such devotees, if we read his writings with fevor, we see there that the "relationship" we all cherish must be a relationship by proxie, that to get christ, we must work at it thru the lives of all the folks we come in contact with. for if we cannot forgive our co-worker, than niether can he forgive us. if we do not love our enemy, than our religion is as filthy rags, if we do not consider the other more important than ourselves than how can we say we follow christ, who gave his life for the worm? most of us are christian-lite and unless and until the crap hits the fan, we will ever be so. the times require no more of us. but the most important relationship you can have before christ is not with him altho that must be the umbrella, it is with the guy next door. so imagine if you will a line, you are at one end and christ at the other. he dearlly loves you and you he, but there are people, so many people in between...what to do...begin at the first one and work your way thru the line. to each one you must give what is needful. a drink a word a deed, a visit, a hug whatever. at the end of the line christ is holding open his arms, well done young one. you saw me in prison and visited me ,i was hungry and you fed me...
3:55 pm
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4:35 pm
i agree with you milkchunksmom.
the people where you live must be well loved!
corey sleap
4:38 pm
Christianity a religion or a relationship?
Chad man I love that you said that-
“I'm sure there have been hundreds of such periods of crisis in the past and our faith desperately needs them. Lets see this one through.”
Yup it’s a good place to be if we all keep asking the question and listen to God and each other (in other words stay accountable) the answers to these questions will be found. Im exited about that.
We know what Christianity is!!
Corey sleap
4:46 pm
Some fantastic comments. Thanks for that extensive scriptural quote, Corey - much needed.
Is there a point at which our relationships to others are more to us spiritually than merely the sacrificial love-giving Christ so emphasized?
Here's one of my favorite quotes of Christ's in John 17:
"20 "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: 23 I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me."
I think what some of you are saying is that the outgiving of love to others IS our love for Christ. I would also suggest the reception of love from his body IS the love we feel from him. This is nothing new but I think it is a simplified way of expressing our need for each other. There is no "me and Christ" because without the other I cannot relate to him - give or receive from him.
I think in this John passage Jesus is saying, among other things that, until we have understood our need for each other and truly learned to relate to God as a body God will not be among us - the "world" will not encounter him in us.
Darren, philosophically, I don't think you can say "i am {we all are} pure subjectivity with two ears and two eyes" and, at the same time say, "the most essential thing in my life with Father is me." When you think it through the inescapable nature of our subjectivity leads not to, "I am the be all end all" but, "Everything that is in relation to me is more important than I am."
If you want some exposition about how I reach that conclusion let me know.
5:51 pm
as always- great discussion. chad, i absolutely agree... and i might take it a step further in that not only is our love of other a love towards Christ, but is our encounter with the other actually an encounter with Christ.
darren, if your "personal" relationship with the Father doesn't propell you into true encounter with the other, you are a narrcisist. i see it all over the scriptures where we are held accountable for our brother.
a parable by david bazan:
"all the way to grandma's house
i stayed on the narrow path
but my brother wandered off
deep into the woods
bitten twice by rattle snake
strangled up in poison oak
he fell down and broke his legs
into a great ravine
when i arrived at grandma's house
she made us tea and cake
she asked me where my brother was
i said i don't know and ate..."
to exist is to stand in relation.
everyone should pick up a copy of martin buber's "I and Thou"- seriously, this is your homework!
5:05 am
ps:
"As long as one attains redemption only in his self, he cannot do any good or harm to the world, he does not concern it. Only he that believes in the world achieves contact with it, and if he commits himself he also cannot remain godless. Let us love the actual world that never wishes to be annulled, but love in all its terror, but dare to embrace it with our spirit’s arms- and our hands encounter the Hands that hold it." - martin buber
7:26 am
i didn't mean to kill the conversation... was it something i said? :)
8:10 am
Not your fault, man. Hopefully we're all looking into it a little more thoroughly before saying anything else. I know that's where I am.
5:52 pm
Good stuff again everyone. I've just recently been interacting with N.T. Wright's, "The New Perspective on Paul" There seems to be two issues that I am seeing.
The first is developmentalism. It sounds like djp72 is just another Christian that is encountering Christ in all stages of growth, which has a stage of development called "sanctified self-focusedness" As I understand that stage, it lines up with the verse mentioned, "Love your neighbour as yourself" Most Christians (generalization) I know assume that they already love themselves but I am influenced to think that a lot of Christians for different reasons actually hate themselves on some level. Some more than others. It seems evident that there is a form of self-love that is more about boundaries and emotional health than it is about being selfish - don't agree totally with the "man as worm" theology. We are highly dignified and we are constantly arriving at this place of dignity. Narnia is an example of that - Those children were pulled from reality into another reality to encounter that they were part of an incredibly significant prophecy and were being called into their royal identity by incredible need only to be thrust back into thier other reality to face life with this new found confidence in who they are. The same thing is going in with Lord of the Rings with Aragorn. The "already not yet" of personal worth and dignity and the sacred, significant calling on each individual's life. This bein true, it is a calling into something greater and more significant but that in the end is extremely communal and can't be done apart from community if it is going to happen the way God prescribed it (John 17 passage). But there is a point at which it is almost selfish almost because you have to realize to that extent how much you apart from the other are valued. One cannot give what one has not first received. There fore this allows for "...as yourself" love. I don't want to give my neighbour my selfish love for myself because it is rooted in sin but there is a thin line where you can cross over to that allows for healthy "self-love" that only eventually serves to better those that you then can minister to. This is only an aspect not the entire picture. I will include my second thing in a different comment - this is too long
8:36 pm
In "The New Perspective on Paul" Wright's general thesis seems to center around the fact that Paul is a missionary writing, not a theologian (although he is a theologian). That Paul's focus is not to lay down sola fide or justification by faith but to lay down the lordship of Jesus Christ (Romans 10:9,10 and 15:5) He sees Pauls purpose in writing Romans to not be a theological treatise but a letter to explain why the Jews did not need to impose their standards of Judaistic nationalism (not legalism) onto the believing Gentiles in Rome. Paul was constantly elevating the Gentiles and lowering the status of the Jews because the Jews already had an over zealous view of themselves and their nationhood - this led to them demanding not legalism from the Gentiles but to acutally become Jewish in order to really worship and believe this new found religion. They weren't demanding legalism as much as they were demanding an nationhood-change much. An analogy could be that in order to become a candidate for Ms. America, you have to be one of the original Americans and to be born in the US. No immigrants or first generation people. This is ridiculous in light of the Gospel. Wright thinks then that Paul was writing on the issue of unity among Jews and Gentiles and that justification by faith was a by-product, but that communal unity was the focus. He cites the West's "Rhobust Conscience" and that much of Lutheran theology was shaped by his conscience as it interacted with Romans rather than what Paul was really trying to get at and because we in the West have the same self focused naval gazing issues that we will read it likewise - much different then 1st cent. Judaism and their view of individuals and community.
8:53 pm
Nate,
Thanks for the postings - keen insight.
2:29 am
thanks for bringing that nate. i've been hearing quite a bit about writes pauline perspectives, sounds intreaguing (i'm working my way through his lectures on the authority of scripture, good stuff)
it's funny how things jump out at you when you've already been thinking about them. i was reading Lesslie Newbign's "Gospel in a Pluralist Society" (excellent text by the way) and i came across this quote:
"In contrast to the modern Western views, [in the Bible] there is no attempt to see the human person as an autonomous individual, and the human relation with God as the relation of the alone to the alone. From the very beginning the Bible sees human life in terms of relationships... There is, there can be, no private salvation, no salvation which does not involve us with one another... In order to recieve God's saving revelation we have to open the door to the neighbor... There is no salvation except one in which we are saved together through the one whom God sends to be the bearer of his salvation."
and he goes on to address our thological confusion around the doctrine of "election" but the relevance here is that we do not encounter God and experience salvation in issolation- somebody told us, somebody impacted us, we stand in relation and are saved through relation, openning the door to the other. we impact others and are impacted by others in the realm of redemption.
here is a little diddy that was inspired by this coversation:
http://elnellis.blogspot.com/2006/01/welcome-cain.html
3:42 am
what does Nouwen say about this stuff? Anyone interact with him lately. He is incredible on community but one of the most internally conscientious writers I have ever encountered.
5:33 am
Corex really summed it up, it's about staying accountable.
Not easy if we have been unduly burned by legalist. Not easy if we are afraid of being discovered and being seen as something other than what distance allows us to portray ourselves as.
10:11 pm
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