Love in action

This article draws together items I have placed on my Progressive and Deconstructivist Theology  Facebook page. The theme is clear.

1.

"The "Christ Mystery" is much bigger than Christianity as an organized religion. If we don't understand this, Christians will have little ability to make friends with, build bridges to, understand, or respect other religions or the planet. Jesus did not come to create a country club or a tribe of people who could say, "We're in and you're out. We've got the truth and you don't." Jesus came to reveal something that was true everywhere, for everyone, and all the time." ~ Father Richard Rohr

"from a progressive Christian perspective, Jesus is “the way, the truth, and the life,” and all who follow Jesus’ way, teachings, and example — the way of unconditional love, of radical hospitality, of loving-kindness, of compassion, of mercy, of prophetic speaking truth to power, the way of forgiveness, of reconciliation, and the pursuit of restorative justice – by whatever name, and even if they’ve never even heard of Jesus, are fellow brothers & sisters in Christ and his Way.

To the extent that other world religions are about instilling, fostering, and nurturing those universal values – we see Christ in them." ~ Roger Wolsey

2.

If you want to know who God is, look at Jesus. If you want to know what it means to be human, look at Jesus.  If you want to know what grief is, look at Jesus.  And go on looking until you are not just a spectator, but you're actually part of the drama which has him as the central character. - NT Wright

3.

To follow Jesus is to conspire in love against every system that crushes the poor and silences the weak.  It is to stand up, speak out, and resist all injustice and oppression. - Kurt Struckmeyer

4.

Every time the Body of Christ prays, "thy kingdom, thy will be done on earth as it is heaven", we are verbally complicit in the subversive agenda of Jesus. - Ben Bergren

5.

Discipleship is not a destination but a journey of learning to love as Jesus loved, every day in every way. - Kurt Struckmeyer.

Finally, a quotation from Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin:

"I try to follow the teachings of Jesus not the teachings of the men who formed a religion around him."

 Readers of this blog or my Facebook page (see above) will understand that I consider Don Cupitt to be correct: God was a human construct, and human beliefs were human creations.  It follows from this that the bible is not the infallible word of God, literally, symbolically or metaphorically.  Marcus Borg emphasises the bible is of human creation.  It is valuable insofar as it sets out the teaching attributed to Jesus as that time. But, it is not fixed in the time it was written, it is for us to determine our understanding of the teaching in and for our own time.  The teaching is not a set of rigid, fixed, unchangeable rules, rather it sets out broad, general principles capable of adaptation to changing cirumstances.  The teaching is not some musty, old, dead document rotting away in the mire of irrelevance, no, it is a living document assisting us to show the basic concept of love by our actions.

Theology and praxis

Over the years I have witnessed many examples of love, compassion, kindness,  care, concern, call it what you will, in action.  Not only is such activity to be seen in helping individuals at point of need: it is witnessed also in campaigns for systemic change, for social justice, for action to deal with causes of poverty, deprivation,  discrimination, marginalisation and exclusion.  It is the doing that matters, not the thinking about doing.  Doing good is not the preserve of any one group, all can assist and campaign: it doesn't matter if you are white, black, male, female, gay, straight, poor, rich, atheist, humanist, Christian, Muslim etc.

What motivates an individual to show love etc. for others? What is the trigger or experience of an individual that calls them to respond to the needs of others?  What ethical/moral considerations come into play?   

Some Christians tell us that God is love and this, along with the teachings of Jesus, informs their actions.  For them, theology determines praxis.  Until very recently I thought along similar lines, now I have my doubts that this is an accurate reflection of how things are.  For many people of faith helping others is not determined by prior theological reflection, rather they read back from action to discern theological support for what they are doing.  Is the relationship between theology and praxis symbiotic?  I believe it is.

We need to free ourselves from the constraint of a theology informing us what we should or should not do when it is based on fundamentalist/literalist interpretation of ancient texts.  We need a theology that reflects and responds pro-actively to situations in the world of today, otherwise it will be ignored as being irrelevant. We should understand our theology and scripture through the lens of love.

What the Church of England requires  has been well expressed by Revd. Colin Coward, the founder of Changing Attitude England. The CofE should be:  

"A Church that refocuses its' teaching and life on the essence of Jesus' life and teaching - 'life in all its fulness'."

So what are my conclusions? Anything I write is provisional as neither I nor anyone else can discern  'truth'. Writing in a Church of England context I consider the church should ditch its fundamentalist, literalist, conservative, evangelical baggage. Instead we should be seeking a church with a theology and praxis that is firmly fixed on the principle of love. A church that seeks to preach and act out the teaching attributed to Jesus to be found in the great commandments, the parables, the Sermon on the Mount and sundry other places in the gospels and  understood in the context of their  meaning and application in today's world.

What matters is not a set of beliefs. What does matter is behaviour, action, loving neighbour, not as theory but as practical action; helping individuals at point of need and campaigning for systemic change to achieve social justice.

Texas Theologian

Jim Rigby is a Minister of the Presbyterian Church in Austin Texas. Along with fellow Americans viz Chris  Kratzer, Caleb J Lines and Mark Sandlin he presents progressive Christian theological thought and praxis at a particularly difficult time in the USA.  They are not alone in their opposition to the Make America Great Again politics that are supported by many of a conservative evangelical  persuasion.

Below are four of Jim Rigby's recent posts on Facebook.  I commend them to you.

1. BEING NICE IS NOT NECESSARILY KIND

There was a time early in my ministry where no one had a bad word to say about me. I didn’t realize that my supposed popularity was based on blending into the hierarchies of oppression and not standing up for anyone. 

My silence in the pulpit about controversial issues meant I was a guilty bystander to the church’s abuse of women, the LGBTQ community, and to non-Christians in general. 

Eventually, I learned if you truly love others you have to be honest enough to risk losing their approval. Being nice is not necessarily being kind.

2. BET IT ALL ON LOVE

I love the kind of religion where people can gather to ask the great questions of life, but detest the forms of religion that pretend they have found all the answers.

I detest the kind of religion that place the sandaled foot of the Savior on the throat of the culture's scapegoats, but I love the forms of religion that humbly serve the world without needing to preach.

I love the forms of religion where people can come together to celebrate ordinary life as a miraculous gift, but detest the forms of religion that can only find the sacred in the supernatural.

I detest the kinds of religion that bribe us with promises of a gated heaven, but love the forms of religion that bet it all on love.

3. BIBLE BULLIES

Christians who join in the persecution of religious or gender minorities may quote Paul, but they have not understood that Paul’s ultimate punchline is almost always that we are all in need of grace. Paul said a lot of unhelpful things, but his summary statement was almost always that the law is only fulfilled by love. Paul expected us to outgrow his limited understanding. Even if we find verses in Paul’s writings that directly contradict Jesus’ ever expanding message of love, Paul himself taught we are to follow love, not religion, and not Paul.

And, let’s be clear, when someone says they take the bible literally it means they take it superficially. To persecute people because they do not fit your religious stereotypes based on a superficial understandings of ancient texts is not piety- it is spiritual ignorance and political fascism. Spiritual piety is not appointing ourselves as God’s bouncers. Spiritual piety is living our own lives as sacrificial offerings for others whether we think they are worthy or not. 

Judgement finds no place in the Sermon on the Mount and it should have no place in the church today. It is strange indeed for Christians to claim that providing food and housing is government overreach, but that imposing our own sectarian moralism on everyone else is not. 

To the LGBTQ siblings in our human family, I offer my deepest apologies for those members of the Christian faith who have offered you judgment instead of grace, rejection instead of hospitality, and ancient moralisms instead of love in our own place and time. Please know If a Christian cannot look beyond your genitals and see your loving heart, it is they who are trapped in perversion, not you.

4. THE MOST DANGEROUS WORD IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

The word “God” is perhaps the most dangerous word in the English language. I can’t think of another word that so completely makes a room full of people believe they are sharing the same beliefs when, in fact, every person in the room means something different.

I do not believe the symbol “God” is essential to the life of reverence. When people do use that word, it seems to me, the symbol “God” usually refers either to one’s own quest for love or one’s own pursuit of power.

If some some people in this culture use the word “God” to refer to an imagined white male on a golden throne, their religion may consist of little more than a theological mask for the sins of racism, sexism and classism. Religion that worships God as power may simply lift national and cultural injustices to a divine status.

But if, by “God” one means a personification of the tie that binds us ALL together, the word can give emotional texture to an abstract idea of unity. If one finds the sacred, not the the crafted idols of theology, but in the living faces of imperfect and struggling people, and in the frenzied pulse of nature, then the symbol "God" can be a poetic representation of the felt “heart” of a life lived in love.

What is important in any symbol is not the image it conjures in our heads, but the experience of reverence and interconnectedness it reveals in our hearts. The iconoclastic destruction of our religious images is almost as important to the life of love as is the creativity that crafts religious imagery in the first place.

More on rules and principles

 Here I go, again.  In all probability this will be a disjointed ramble through a topic I have considered before. It will lack academic substance, rigour and depth, but then why should I worry?

This article has been sparked by meetings and long conversations with a Church of England Licensed Lay Minister (LLM).  LLM has replaced Reader in the nomenclature of the CofE.  The subject of our most recent discussion was what is meant by the phrase 'love your neighbour' and how it is/should be applied in parishes.

Our discussion teased out the need for consideration of  competing theological positions that have created deep divides within the CoE in both theory and praxis.

I subscribe to the postmodernist ideas of Jacques Derrida: in particular his thesis that words mean what the reader or hearer decides they mean.  Such understanding may or may not accord with the intention of the author. Language is fluid, not rigid nor fixed in any timeframe.  Thus ideas and concepts may mean one thing to their author: their interpretation and understanding is entirely within the domain of the recipient. It is not contexual within a specific timeframe.  This suggests to me that seeking to understand scripture by reference to its historical context is a fruitless exercise, as is the quest for the historical Jesus, or in what is named by Christians as the Old Testament.

Unsurprisingly there is diversity of opinion as to the import of passages of scripture.  Can there be a literal meaning?  How can we know the intention of the orginal author?  Is the bible a sound, unchanging, repository of theological 'truth'.  Or is it evidence of past thinking, worthy of study to assist us in grappling with the issues of belief and faith?

Added to the mix is disputation as to style. Is it metaphor, literal, narrative, poetry, prose, allusion, symbolism etc.?

A few quotations:

The Christian story does not drop from heaven fully written. It grew and developed over a period of forty-two to seventy years. This is not what most Christians have been to taught to think...Christianity is an evolving  story.  It was never, even in the New Testament, a finished story.

JOHN SHELBY SPONG.

I let go of the notion that the Bible is a divine product.  I learned that it is a human cultural product, the product of two ancient communities, biblical Israel and early Christianity.  As such it contained their understandings and affirmations.

MARCUS J BORG

An observation byJohn Dominic Crossan:

My point is not that these ancient people told literal stories and we are not smart enough to take them symbolically, but that they told them symbolically and we are now dumb enough to take them literally.

I turn to consideration of rules and principles.  Both seek to determine behaviour and may interact.  We are all governed by rules.  There is hardly any aspect of our lives not the subject of rules, regulations, canons etc., driving, marrying, employment, claiming benefits, club membership...the list in almost endless.  Adherence to the rules is achieved by the potential for sanctions, punishment etc. imposed by  the organisation responsible for monitoring and applying the rules.  There are those who will seek to circumvent rules by finding loopholes or lacunae.  Thus tax evasion is illegal, but tax avoidance by means of a gap or loophole in the rules is legal. In the Old Testament the Law was circumvented by tortuous interpretation of rules to justify actions that on the face of literal interpretation were not permitted. The overall effect of rules is limiting and, unless altered, are not susceptible  easily to reflect societal changes in the areas they cover.  As society changes the rules may not be in step, appear anchronistic and eventually become the subject of ridicule and desuetude.  

The CofE is pulling itself apart over the issue of same-sex marriage blessings, never mind same sex marriage. There are those who assert biblical teaching on marriage forbids any recognition of same-sex relationships.  Thus the CoE is out of step with secular law and opinion that permits same-sex civil marriage. The Church is having great difficutly in changing its rules (canons) on this matter as its internal rules on adopting change make it extremely difficult to achieve.  Has impasse been reached? Is the Living in Love and Faith process dead in the water?

Those favouring acceptance by the Church of same-sex marriage etc point to the principle that God's love extends to all in a committed relationship.  Following this principle would enable the current restrictive rules to be abolished.  

The command attributed to Jesus to 'love your neighbour' is a principle.  Indeed the bible states Jesus as claiming that all the law and prophets are subsumed by this and the commandment to love God.  The bible is to be read and understood through the lens of love and this principle overrides earlier rules and regulations.  Principles usually are broad statements and capable of fluid interpretation and application.  They enable escape from narrow restrictive rules, in theory.

In English law once a principle is established there are those lawyers who will beaver away to apply rules to the principle in order to limit its application.  Others will seek to expand the principle beyond what might have been the original intention of them formulating the principle.  It becomes an ongoing battle, hence the fluidity of principles.

There are denominations that ignore the command to love your neighbour,  choosing instead to preach the carrot of eternal life and the stick of hell as part of their doctrine, dogma and custom. There are Christians who will accept the principle of love your neighbour but hedge it with the dreaded 'but', thereby not being inclusive but excluding and marginalising particular individuals or groups. 

So what are my conclusions? Anything I write is provisional as neither I nor anyone else can be certain of the 'truth'. Do I have faith, belief or opinion? Probably the last of these.  Writing in a CofE context I consider the church should ditch it fundamentalist, literalist, conservative, evangelical baggage.  Instead we should be seeking a church with a theology and praxis that is firmly fixed on the principle of love.  A church that seeks to preach and act out the teaching attributed to Jesus to be found in the great commandments, the parables, the Sermon on the Mount and sundry other places in the gospels but understood in the context of their application in the context of our world.  Praxis should be grounded in theology.

Note the difference

Note the failure of individuals to distinguish between what they have a right to do from what it is right to do. Politicians have shown themselves adept at claiming their actions are within the rules and disregarding the ethical consideration of what it is right to do, particularly when it comes to invoicing the public purse for expenses.

The issue is one of distinguishing rules from principles.  In following rules it is possible to fail to appreciate underlying principles.  The ethical principle may well cast a wider net than encompassed by the rules.  The danger is that a literal interpretation of rules may ignore the principles behind them.

In the synoptic gospels the Pharisees are noted for applying the law whereas Jesus is attributed with drawing out the ethical basis undergirding the rules.  

Rules may be contained in legislation, but wherever they come from it is likely they are attributable to a source.  The source of ethical principles may be harder to define, indeed in a multi-cultural society, or one ridden with class, racial or sexual  discrimination, there is likely to be a plurality of ethical beliefs competing with each other. Rules may be imposed in an attempt to secure adherence to a particular set of ethical beliefs and thereby lead to conflict within society.