Two thousand years ago, a roving Jewish teacher, the kind that was quite common in that day was nailed to a cross by the Romans on charges of sedition.
The story, at least according to the Bible goes that he was sold off to the Romans by the priestly class in Jerusalem whose grip over the minds of the people he threatened. He could have extricated himself from this trap, but gave himself up to his tormentors partly in fulfilment of an ancient prophecy and partly as a redemptory act of love for all mankind shackled by the irons of sin to death and despair.
Three days after his death, he was raised up, in a miraculous act ordained by heaven. After a brisk forty days in which he appeared in the flesh to his erstwhile followers, he ascended into heaven promising to return and redeem the whole of the earth from its debased state.
This Jesus was a revolutionary. As he said himself he came to do away with the old, and bring about a new order. His Kingdom however, much to the disappointment of the people of his day was not of this world, it was a Kingdom of heaven, one built upon the grace of God and a promise of the repurchase of the world and all in it from slavery to untruth and sin. Doing away with the rigorous ritual of traditional Judaism, Jesus and his zealous apostles would in the next few centuries take the world by storm. Infused with a spirit of brotherly love and kindness, a proselytising zeal that opened up the gates of the Jewish heaven to all regardless of ethnic or class background and a moral message that taught equality and justice;the Christian congregations, grew and grew.
Through the years, the new faith suffered innumerable setbacks, especially as the Romans took it on as their state religion and as contesting schools of philosophy wrestled for theological supremacy. However, even as apostasy set in and state power corroded at the outer shell of the new religion, its inner core continued to shine a light to the nations teaching a moralism and a promise of future reward that laid the basis for a more just dispensation throughout the ancient world. A faith that held all accountable to a higher being, that taught that charity was the highest ideal and that the redemption was based not on ritual acts of piety but on an inner purity of spirit that bought one the grace of a powerful yet forgiving deity, Christianity as taught by the Christ survived the darkest ages.
The new faith was resilient and flexible, morphing as it crossed borders and seas, sent by the sword, at the end of a bayonet or from the mouth of a kindly evangelist with a mission to teach and cure disease, it won converts of all colours and religions. Everywhere it went the new faith brought change, some of it sudden, some of it taking much longer to take root, but everywhere it shone a torch of hope, setting millions free from superstition and cruel unjust practices. A translating faith, not a fundamentalist one, it took in elements of the resident religions and grew in its influence over the whole of the earth, not just in the religious sphere, but in politics, culture and law.
As G. K Chesterton once put it, Christianity has died many times and risen again, for it has a God who knows the way out of the grave. The Christian congregation has survived the ingestion of new ideas, the might of great armies, great schisms and even the terror of the acceptance of the ideas of science such as evolution.
Now two thousand years after the departure of its inspiration, the way that the Christ beat out of the bushes is overgrown with weeds. Divorced of its mooring in the comfort of accepted ethics, Christianity in the modern world has to persist where self assertion and freedom of expression have replaced the conformity and submission of old. Authority, whether religious or otherwise is held up to ridicule as the unyielding teachings and principles that the Christ emphasized are replaced with an ersatz devotion inconsistent with his teachings.
One sect within the Church has taken the path of moral relativism, and in its uncertainty fallen to the twin idols of the self and the nation state. Aided by the Church's non-committal and often blasé reaction to the onslaught of science and philosophy, this group has grown disillusioned by the certainty of the promise of the Christ, of the moral rectitude of his message. Nominally of the Christ, it takes hold of the hem of the church while at the same time gravitating towards the easy path of compromise with the worldly hedonistic culture. Hidden under a basket, the little lamp is soon extinguished.
The other major sect of soi-disant Christians paints an even sorrier sight. Imbued with passion and confidence they claim to be infused with the spirit of the Christ. On bended knee, eyes shut and hands clasped they pay homage to heaven and the immolation of the Christ. Even then their hearts bear none of the self-sacrificing love that the Christ said would mark them out from the world. Cheap emotionalism and the terror of hell-fire are their calling cards, love and humility are thrown off and the congregation is cloaked in the raiment of materialism and aggressive commercialism. Vibrant and growing larger and larger still, this new faith's fundamentalism violates everything the Christ represented. It is discriminatory where he preached inclusion, covetous where he taught piety, aggressive and warmongering where he sought peace and self-interested -devoid of the charity that the Christ's early followers took on as the greatest symbol of their religion.
The Christian Church is growing, the pews are filling up, Sunday prayers are full of song (and dance), collection baskets are straining with money, but Jesus is dead. Long live the Church.
Trackback(0)
 |
TrackBack URI for this entry
Subscribe to this comment's feed
Show/Hide comments
Show/Hide comment form
Anyway seriously, Christianity as a civilising modernising force has outlived its usefulness. Like you have pointed out it has only two kinds of members, the deluded and the apathetic. One is a dangerous membership, the other is not even a membership.
Would Jesus have recognised the Church 1500 years ago though? This erosion is as old at the Church itself.