What if Christianity actually looked like Jesus? I don't just mean the church or people. What if God looked like Jesus? What if the religion constructed in the name of Jesus looked like the humble peasant from Nazareth?
First of all, as a religion, Christianity would be diametrically opposed to the triumphalism of fundamentalist religion. Why? Jesus was not a triumphalist. Jesus didn't try to force his enemies to convert to his way. He embodied it and was willingly crucified for it.
Would Christianity be willing to undergo crucifixion for the way of Jesus?
What if Christianity was more concerned with embodying the emancipating way of Jesus than making its own name great? Jesus wasn't concerned with making his name great. He was concerned with inviting people into the way he embodied in his life, the way that leads us to the loving Father of creation and into the heart of reality.
Jesus invited people into a gracious understanding of reality, a view of the universe not as indifferent but as a relational cosmos grounded in the love that is the subsurface unity of reality.
Jesus was more concerned with the well-being of humanity and creation than his own life.
Christianity must take up its cross and incarnate the cruciformity of Christ.
The truth of Christianity is not propositional but relational and contextual, not abstract but operational.
Jesus was the truth not through his words but his actions.
The truth of Christianity must be contextualized through incarnation in the life of the one who would follow Jesus. In this way, Christianity may actually look like Jesus.
What if Christianity was more concerned with the well-being of the world than its own survival? If we seek first the kingdom of God then maybe, just maybe, Christianity will be added to us. But we first have to give up our triumphalistic notions of a God who loves and cares more for Christians than everyone else. And who knows, perhaps we will realize with the kingdom that we no longer need Christianity.
Perhaps upon seeing the kingdom we will realize that as a temporary vocation for the children of God in human history, Christianity is over, and that the goodness harbored within its event has been resurrected into our material reality as an all-encompassing presence and the revelation of the children of God in every human body loved and cherished by God. When Jesus died, Christ was risen in the body of those who remembered him and who carried forth his presence through the indwelling of the Spirit.
Perhaps Christianity will also pass away, and the Spirit within will be risen again in the whole of creation as the kingdom fully arrives with the peace of God covering the entire cosmos.
First of all, as a religion, Christianity would be diametrically opposed to the triumphalism of fundamentalist religion. Why? Jesus was not a triumphalist. Jesus didn't try to force his enemies to convert to his way. He embodied it and was willingly crucified for it.
Would Christianity be willing to undergo crucifixion for the way of Jesus?
What if Christianity was more concerned with embodying the emancipating way of Jesus than making its own name great? Jesus wasn't concerned with making his name great. He was concerned with inviting people into the way he embodied in his life, the way that leads us to the loving Father of creation and into the heart of reality.
Jesus invited people into a gracious understanding of reality, a view of the universe not as indifferent but as a relational cosmos grounded in the love that is the subsurface unity of reality.
Jesus was more concerned with the well-being of humanity and creation than his own life.
Christianity must take up its cross and incarnate the cruciformity of Christ.
The truth of Christianity is not propositional but relational and contextual, not abstract but operational.
Jesus was the truth not through his words but his actions.
The truth of Christianity must be contextualized through incarnation in the life of the one who would follow Jesus. In this way, Christianity may actually look like Jesus.
What if Christianity was more concerned with the well-being of the world than its own survival? If we seek first the kingdom of God then maybe, just maybe, Christianity will be added to us. But we first have to give up our triumphalistic notions of a God who loves and cares more for Christians than everyone else. And who knows, perhaps we will realize with the kingdom that we no longer need Christianity.
Perhaps upon seeing the kingdom we will realize that as a temporary vocation for the children of God in human history, Christianity is over, and that the goodness harbored within its event has been resurrected into our material reality as an all-encompassing presence and the revelation of the children of God in every human body loved and cherished by God. When Jesus died, Christ was risen in the body of those who remembered him and who carried forth his presence through the indwelling of the Spirit.
Perhaps Christianity will also pass away, and the Spirit within will be risen again in the whole of creation as the kingdom fully arrives with the peace of God covering the entire cosmos.
Insightful stuff Michael. I do have a couple questions though.
ReplyDeleteIs it possible to deconstruct the religiosity that is Christianity? What I mean by that is, whether through authoritarian fundamentalism or the abject subjectivism of those that believe their faith calls them to self-abandonment, can we really deconstruct the contemporary Christian experience in the hope of mirroring the existence of a 2000 year old Mediterranean peasant? I don’t know. But perhaps the call to Christianity in this age, and in this day, is to be an agent of transformation. As those that followed Jesus 2000 years ago, we too, are defined by a culture. That culture has changed with Christianity, at times tightening the grip on salvific expectations, and at times diminishing Jesus to nothing more than an excellent orator. Either way, I think the title of religion serves a purpose for us. If nothing else, at least religion will order out what could become an adulterated diversification of what it means to be the body of Christ.
I agree with you that Christ has risen in the bodies of believers; however, how that experience is lived out in a both a transformational and universal way, fortunately and unfortunately comes to us as religion. Personally, I think we need religion and religion needs us. We are the living bread, but even the bread needs yeast to rise.
I think you make some good points, and I would begin my response by quoting James K.A. Smith that "deconstruction is a work of love." It is what I love in Christianity that drives me toward deconstruction, and what I love is what is embodied in Jesus. So on to some specific responses.
ReplyDelete(1) I do not believe we can imitate a 2000 year old Mediterranean peasant in any literal manner. This would require that we becomes male Jewish rabbis and eat kosher food among other things. I see Jesus as a dialectical symbol mediating a transhistorical meaning remediated through the transmitted text of scripture. I believe that our encounter with the story of Jesus involves a crossing of stories (or fusion of horizons) in which our story collides with the story of Jesus, and that out of this dialectical trauma comes theology.
(2) A lot of this is the rhetoric of deconstruction and is not intended to be taken overly literally. When I speak of giving up Christianity, I am talking about a willingness to abandon dogma in favor of human life, never holding our religious beliefs or theological doctrines (which are constructs) over human life. What Jesus shows us (the value of life and our responsibility to it) should always trump over our theology when it gets in the way. In other words, I take a utilitarian view of religion which is primarily interested in its potential to mediate “yeast” into the “bread” as you said, holding its function as more important than the vehicle(s) of that function(s). Our religion is never more important than human life, and that event which birthed our religion, Jesus, testifies to this in the crucifixion.
(3) To conclude, I will offer a story. There was a German priest in the holocaust who was with a group of Nazis as they prepared to exterminate a group of Jews. He stood in their way and said that they cannot do this because it is against God. They told him that he must either stand with them or put on a Jewish star and stand with the Jews. The priest proceeded to put on the star and go stand with the Jews, renouncing his Christian faith for solidarity with the victim. In this act, he gives up Christianity precisely for the sake of Christianity (or Jesus), which is why I stated that deconstruction is a work of love.