paul would be appalled
As many of you know, I have a distinct dislike for religiosity and religious people in general. Perhaps it is the rebel (holy or unholy?) in me but there is something in me that wants to offend such folk and challenge their prissy religious sensibilities. I maintain the belief that it is Jesus who not only saves us from religion, but is himself the very undoing of all forms of religion (see my posts on on the subject here and here.) We need Jesus to keep us from becoming oppressive religious people. I believe that Christianity minus Christ equals Religion–and the reality is that we so easily subvert Jesus from the faith. And this to our great demise.
I have been talking with some of my more Reformed friends recently and have increasingly come to the rather unnerving conclusion that Calvinism is particularly susceptible to religiosity. Partly because of its idea of the continuity between law and gospel, partly because of its church over society stance, and partly because of sense of being being the chief historical defender of the Faith. But mostly I believe this susceptibility comes from its general circumventing of the life and teachings of Jesus. If this is so, why? Well, it is inordinately hard to make Jesus sound like a superlapsarian, five-point, Calvinist. I trained in a strongly Reformed seminary (which shall remain unnamed) and so I can speak from experience here. I can say that by and large it felt that we considered the Gospels were mere exercises in Greek exegesis to prepare us up for the real deal–Paul. Yes, we we reserved our real energies and excitement for Paul and Pauline theology, and I think this is true for Calvinist faith in general. I have come to the rather disconcerting conclusion that Reformed theology can easily become a religion of Paul rather than an expression of the life of Jesus is it is not careful. this subversion of Jesus from his own movement is rightly called Paulinism because it so readily discounts the central and defining role of Jesus in the life of the Christian faith. Christianity is a ‘religion’ based on Jesus or it is nothing! And it is not just about the birth, death, resurrection, ascension, and return that are vital to Christian faith, but his life, lifestyle, teachings, and ethos as well.
This loss of Jesus-presence and Jesus-consciousness has always led to the degradation of Christianity throughout history, and the recovery of it will always lead to our renewal. [Re:Jesus, my new book, written with my mate and co-conspirator Mike Frost, will speak right on this topic--out in 08 sometime]
May Christianity become more like Jesus in our day.
And BTW….to hell with religion!
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I think a lot of the time we view the message of Paul an add on to the message of Jesus. This is unfortunate. Paul is essentially re-telling Jesus message to whatever context he can tell it. Unfortunately the church has informally and unconsciously(in the contexts I have been involved in at least) divided the messages. It would be the best if we looked at Jesus message first and how it is central to Pauls.
This is a tangent, but if fits. The thing is a lot of theology is heavily influenced by neo-platonism (Radical Orthodoxy)instead of Judaism. We should look at theology like this: Jesus life and message, how it relates to Judaism and then how they both relate to Paul.
That’s how I see it. What do you guys think?
Alan, my impression is that with a lot of Calvinists they want to defend God so much, protect him almost, that they swing too far to the other side and don’t let his own revelation speak. God is all those wonderful omni’s, but he’s also the God who came to earth and suffered and died.
There’s a scandal to God in that he reaches out much more than his supposed defenders allow. They build a fence around theology, however, and have attack dogs guarding the fence, lest anyone dare get too close to the actual reality.
Though, my impression also is that such people really and genuinely are passionate about God and Scripture. Which is a great example and pushes me deeper to ground my contemplative leanings with solid thought and foundations.
Isaiah, I think you’re spot on about much of theology being neo-Platonic rather than Jewish. Though, not all Western theology is such. Cassian, the contemporary and sometime opponent of Augustine, was a huge influence in the lives of Patrick and other Celtic and monastic leaders, bringing Eastern Christian thought (think Israel and Egypt) into the West. Wesley was a voracious reader of those Easterns and it vitally impacted his thought and ministry.
Found this quote in a gem from 1962; “A Private and Public Faith”, by William Stringfellow (love that name!)
“The religious suppose that only the religious know about God or care about God, and that God cares only for the religious. Characteristically, religion is precious and possessive toward God, and institutes and conducts itself as if God really needs religion, as if His existence depends on the recognition of religion. Religion considers that God is a secret disclosed only in the discipline and practice of religion. But all this is most offensive to the Word of God. The best news of God is that He is no secret. The news of God embodied in Jesus Christ is that God is openly and notoriously active in the world. In this news the Christian Church is constituted; it is this news which the Christian Church exists to spread…The Church, unlike any religion, exists to present to the world and to celebrate in the world, and on behalf of the world, God’s presence and power and utterance and action in the on-going life of the world.”
Heavenly Father, forgive our religiosity. Help us to resist the ungodly urge toward religion in the human heart. Show us the way of freedom, liberty and worship in your beautiful world. Amen.
I dig what you are saying Alan. One thing i have also noticed is that Jesus is treated as the man who died and rose again to save us from our sins and Paul (and the other epistles)is the one who teaches us. It is as though the 33 years leading up to Jesus’ defining Messianic act were just filling in time. I know no-one would say this directly but it is what is communicated through their practice.
Also it sometimes appears that the Bible has been elevated above Jesus. Its all about ‘the Word this and the Word that’. I love the Bible and believe it is God’s word. But Jesus IS the Word come Flesh. In fact, i believe the word of God (bible) is written to show us the Word of God (Jesus), not vice versa.
Shalom…
Oh my goodness, Alan…this is well said and so timely! We’ve endured quite a firestorm around this very issue over at Jesus Creed with Scot McKnight’s last two posts in his “Post-Calvinist” series (you can find them in the sidebar category listing).
Blessings and thanks for weighing in a bit on this.
Well, Alan and all…check out this one from today:
http://www.jesuscreed.org/?p=3161
…are there some planets aligning somewhere…Matt?
I don’t think I have ever done this before but I feel the need to defend Calvinism! In the sense that there loss of Jesus as inspiration is not unique. I was brought up a Pentecostal and the experience of speaking in tongues was the defining and guiding heart of the spiritual life not a life which reflected Jesus.
My adult life has been spent in the holiness movement where following extra biblical rules of behavior has been regarded as the mark of spirituality to the extent that the Jesus who turned water into wine would have been regarded as worldly had he belonged to our ranks.
So I confess that the bias to religion is not just the fault of the followers of Calvin. I think Paul would call it walking in the flesh.
Agree with Isaiah. People get the Torah muddled up with legalism… the whole point is that it is the considered searching out of how to love well, how to love intelligently, how to reverence creation, how to create social justice etc. When Torah gets legalistic in a religious culture, it has all those worst aspects of religiousity. When you approach a dilemma asking, how do I love well here? How do I honour God beautifully here? That’s when you find yourself understanding how Jesus was Jewish. He didn’t sit down and argue first with his friends whether or not to touch a leper or talk to the Samaritan woman. He zoomed right in on what was important.
Alan, I enjoyed the previous blogs you highlighted on pushing Jesus out of His own church. I couldn’t help thinking that we in our own desire and lust look at everything from the neck down.
The church adorns the body with religon, a form of spiritual masturbation, propositioning and edifying itself. Never looking above the neck to the head. Reminds me of Wisdom & Folly! Folly prostitutes herself calling out with her invitation, Proverbs 9:18
But little do they know that the dead are there, that her guests are in the depths of the grave.”
In my own arrogance sometimes I just want to snatch my brothers from the flames. Cry and shout for the loss of Jesus! Than I look in the mirror. Lord! To whom shall we turn?
Your an awesome teacher may God continue to bless you and your ministry!
Well spoken Alan.
Well said Alan! I too always bite my tongue and cringe when ever someone uses that word religion around me.
Some thoughts I had with regards to Jesus and Paul is in regards to the reflection of the church throughout the NT. My last post I talked briefly about how Bob Goudswaard’s six phases of ideology seemed to picture a historical framework which the church could unfortunately fit into. Here’s the problem:
The phases of conception and actualization seem to fit within Jesus’ character and gospel narrative however, when it reaches the stage of (re)construction it seems that human ideology begins to over take (push out as you put it) the focus of Jesus for the mandates of modern human conceptualizations. The question then is “When did this happen?”
As the OT demonstrates very well, scripture is a (in short) inspired recording of history. For that reason can we say that the ideological framework for the modern church paradox began in the book of Acts or perhaps later when Constantine constituted the Christian Church? Or, would Paul be appalled by this question? I ask with the most sincere humility and apologize if this question comes across offensively. I suppose to often I tend to speak from my heart as just the way it is!
from a reformed dude at a reformed seminary, I couldn’t agree more. kep it coming.
allow mem to recommend a great little book called “The origins of Paul’s gospel” (answer: Jesus) by a presby korean-american scholar I think named Kim. We do leave Jesus out to much, especialy his teachings–the dude had a platform he stood behind and that’s what got him killed.
Go bill. Thanks for the book recommendation. I know some of Kim’s work. Will check this one out.
“Christianity minus Christ equals Religion”
1st, I do agree, that one of the most, if not the main consequence of organized religion, is the putting of form over substance. For me in a nut shell this is Judaism, they reached a point where the coming of Prophets became very burdensome for them, as they often spoke out against the corruptions of the people and the so-called religious authority. With that said Jesus is not alone in this regard. The Jews were heavily legalistic, obsessed with the letter of the law, seeing their religion as the end, rather then a means to that end, Jesus balanced the playing field, not by destroying the law or the prophets but instead adding the spirit to the law, and by adding spirit it almost impossible to see the law as an end.
However, rather than adhering to this balance many contemporary Christians go to the other extreme, dispensing with the law and the prophets altogether, blaming it for all the ills, but this is something foreign to the actual life of Jesus. Thereby advocating a type of lawlessness and disintegration of hundred of years of biblical principles and hard gained biblical knowledge and simultaneously opening the door to every innovative fancy of the individual desires.
Jesus can only be understood in the context of the torah and the biblical prophets that has preceded him, as well the mindset of the lost sheep of Israel.
Let’s not forget Jesus was a practicing Jew, who was specifically attempting to correct the mindset of the lost sheep of Israel, which was the legalistic trend.
The West has taken him totally out of his Jewish roots, constructed a new religion that he has never practiced or sanctioned, taking out his language whether Hebrew or Aramaic, changed it to pre-dominantly Greek and some Latin, changed the Sabbath, ignore the commandments against images. All of these changes introduced to making it more acceptable for Pagan to sign up. To the extent of that their major religious holidays have undeniable pagan origins. Most Christian principles are the brain-child of Paul and Jesus living example is cited as a supplement, here and there. Westernization has not even spared Jesus’ picture, now he too is European.
Now we are shocked that Jesus appears to have taken out of the contemporary church.
Contemporary Christianity is now a religion that attempts to achieve an end but have no means to means to achieve it, they put substance over form. This is why unlike the other Abrahamic faith, Christianity has dozens upon dozens non-canonized gospels more so then the actual canonized gospels, and these non-canonized gospels entertain every deviant view, to the extent that Judas was the greatest of the disciple.
Lets apply the balance.