the post without a definative topic. aka: let's start with wrote I previously wrote and let Curtis &/or others take the wheel
I think it may be that if anyone adheres to a lifestyle of selfless reason they are a Christian, even if they might not profess to being a Christian. The reason I believe this is because I believe the only NESECCARY requisites to being a Christian are:
1) Loving God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength
-Since I believe God is love, I can reword this by saying:
'1) Loving Love and all encompassed in love-- grace, compassion, truth, justice, mercy, forgiveness, wisdom, ect, ect-- with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.
and
2) Loving your neighbor as your self.
-At the same time I think believing in the resurrection, new creation, and the divinity of Jesus are characteristics of someone of stronger faith in the Christian narrative. But I still think loving Love and loving one's neighbor are the essence Christian qualitification.
Comments?
1) Loving God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength
-Since I believe God is love, I can reword this by saying:
'1) Loving Love and all encompassed in love-- grace, compassion, truth, justice, mercy, forgiveness, wisdom, ect, ect-- with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.
and
2) Loving your neighbor as your self.
-At the same time I think believing in the resurrection, new creation, and the divinity of Jesus are characteristics of someone of stronger faith in the Christian narrative. But I still think loving Love and loving one's neighbor are the essence Christian qualitification.
Comments?
posted by Timothy Sommer at 3:35 PM
13 Comments:
tim ...
I think Thomas made a strong point in the last post when he said (something like): there are many "good people" or even "lovers of love" outside the Christian story and Church. And with this, I agree. I think that when we place these qualities and qualifications of "Christian" on pieces of the world that are not and do not hope to be involved with the Christian Church, then we're being prideful and wreak of a certain kind of "fundamentalism."
When we place these kind of "Christian priorities" on those things that are "outside" this Christian thing, we're attempting to make sense of non-Christian things by calling them Christian. And yet, within the Church and with faith, we say that "all is within the grace and hand of God" and such things, which I feel that are said, again, in faith. So, in a certain sense, this does mean that the Christian Church and Christian theology is to look beyond its own bounds to that which it doesn't understand and attempt to see what's going on there. But calling it Christian doesn't seem like what is to happen. It seems good to acknowledge the diversity in faith and hope within the world without calling it all (or most of it) "Christian," because it's not and doesn't want to be.
In now way do I disagree that "loving God and loving one's neighbor" are bad things, or things that are not involved in Christianity. Yet, I feel something weird in my stomach when we say that "this is all one 'needs to do' in order to 'be a Christian'." It does seem "obvious" in Jewish and Christian Scripture that what YHWH desires is "mercy and not sacrifice." And yet this Christian thing never seems to happen alone. If we're talking a mere issue of "heaven and hell" (which I don't think we are), then yes we'd have to be concerned with "who's in and who's out" and some kind of individual choice "to be a Christian" in order to gain that eternal reward thing. But I don't know if that's the concern here.
It seems that Christian theology centers around the social group of "Church." Now, what "Church" is, is an extremely ambiguous word (especially for me right now). When I speak of "Church" I'm kind of speaking from two sides of my mouth. On one hand, I have a deep desire to be a part of the Church and that social body from which theology comes alive. Yet on the other hand, I work almost every sunday morning and make no attempt to "find a church" on sunday or wednesday night. I've sat in a few services here and there throughout this year but haven't made it a kind of habit. I know this may sound wishy-washy and a sort of cop out ... and I guess that's okay. And the furthest I can get away from the "just have an individual relationship with Jesus" thing I can get, I want to be. In not way am I supporting that even-more-American version of Christianity.
So, my two sided mouth says that Christian theology and Christian salvation are within the Christian Church, and yet I have not attended a formal service of an established church in over two years. This has much to do with the fact, as mentioned above, that the word and idea of Church is about as ambiguous as anything I've ever heard.
To say that "love of God and love of neighbor" or "loving love" is the basis for Christianity seems, actually, far off base. It seems that (maybe) those things are results of being a social body called the Church and only come from actively living as a part of that body. The "one body many parts" story seems to fit well here -- all things being different but interacting to make life. For, one person / opinion / strength / will / desire cannot be so powerful as to control or understand all things. It seems necessary that authority is spread and a deep inter-dependence exists in the Church. And this lifestyle is that thing which rebels against that American thing. To be a part of the Church is to submit to that authority and that very submission goes against the individuality and self-will we've been taught.
Saying that Christianity is confined to a certain ethic also ignores so much human history in which groups (within the Church) have worked long and hard to be that Church and work for its members.
Again, I'd like to stress my ambiguity on what the Church is or may actually be. I can be ethereal about it but that really comes up with no conclusions or flesh and blood events. I'd appreciate it if someone shed more light on this Church thing.
be peace, brothers and sisters
curtis
I don't understand how what I proposed is prideful. Also, are not love for God and thy neighbor fundemental aspects of Christianity? To call these merely 'priorities' is, to me, downplaying them tremendously. Moreover, in what way makes them 'outside' Christianity?
You speak of the Christian Church as though it is an entity that embodies Christ. Although I totally believe that particular peoples and pockets of the Church have been and continue to be emobodiements of Christ, I think your idea of the Church gives it far too much credit. It's backed sinful practices, politicians and their wars for 1700 years for god sake!
You also said:
'It seems that (maybe) those things [loving God/neighbor] are results of being a social body called the Church and only come from actively living as a part of that body.' I almost thought the same thing until I studied Gandhi. He accomplished such acts and lifestyle of love on a scale that few Christians (in the traditional sense of the word) have ever done. (Aside) In fact, Gandhi is the initiating reason I believe the statement I made in the first place. Upon learning about him I thought to myself, 'How is it this man, who doesn't claim to be only a Christian, but also a Buddhist, a Muslim, a Jew, and a Hindu, live his life in better accordence to the life and demands of Christ better than almost any other self-proclaimed 'Christian' in recent history?' But I won't let this tangent get any further than it already has.
---Timothy
tim (and everyone else) ...
When I say "pride" it's not a stab at you personally. It just seems that the words you wrote down could lead to pride and a certain kind of fundamentalism about a specific ethic that becomes "the good news" instead of the actual good news. Thomas Bridges ( many props to you, my friend. See you this summer! ) said something to me last year that has stuck. He said that pacifism was not the end-all ethic in Christianity and no ethic would ever be. That hit something within me and kind of opened things up a bit. The fact that I couldn't settle on simply one kind of ethic and be static meant that an ongoing delve into 70,000 fathoms of water (Kierkegaard) may have begun. This ever moving, ever growing, never static and always alive thing called "faith" is never finished, especially not in our certain interpretations of Scripture. But man, I am not saying that Love is not "the greatest thing," NO ... it seems, in fact, to be that thing which is the deepest and most penetrating - Paul makes that so clear in our favorite Valentine's Day / Wedding passage ( I Cor. 13 ; see also: Wedding Crashers ). I guess making the cornerstone of Christianity a certain ethic just scares me because Christian faith then loses some of its fluidity and movement. I fear that, just with Modern American Fundamentalism, there will be little or no movement and we'll then be arguing over the semantics of our pretty little ethic or we'll create some "Anti-Religious Right but not quite Left Wing" party.
A guy said to me recently (when speaking of Liberation theology), "It's not the gospel because it's liberation, it's liberation because it's the gospel." And that's what I'm trying to get at. Because saying, "love of God and love of neighbor" seems to point to the Christian God -- the Living God of Israel. This is a very specific thing, and while love really really really really really seems to be at the heart of this news, it doesn't seem to be the good news because it is love, it's love because it's the good news.
Now, please don't really ask me what this "good news" is because I read Scripture and am perplexed that we've gotten so much theology and social ethic from all of it. It's all so cryptic and really confuses me ... and really pisses me off, actually. The stories seem random and the historicity bothers me, really, to no end. The textual criticism people come up with is amazing, and it's hard to appreciate it at all after it's been eaten to shreds by people much smarter and more knowledgeable than I'll ever be.
Some of this may now come off as ethereal talk and I guess that's okay. But, I totally agree with you that "the Church" has been a terrible representation of Jesus Christ and the Living God in the world for thousands of years. I think we can all say, with strong language, that the Church has been and is fucking up. And please keep my previous post in mind as I'm saying this ( this Church thing seems so messed up that my trust in it has been so badly damaged I can barely acknowledge involvement with it, and yet I'm here "defending" it -- ironic ). I just really don't know what to say about the Church, specific "churches" or "the Church of the Nazarene." ( or any other kind of denomination ). I'm so confused as to why I'd think this whole thing is a big deal, but it seems that if we're to steer from Capitalism and Individualism, then the Church will be a backbone in that dis-acknowledgment and un-support. But this is a hard thing to say when we've got people like Pat Robertson and Jerry Fallwell running around and a new mega-church popping up on your local street corner, decked out with everything from a gymnasium, to a rock n' roll band, to Starbucks coffee brewing in the café waiting for consum(e)-ption after the rock band ends with an emotional song and the "worship service" is closed in a prayer to "bless everyone's week" and the pastor reminds the crowd, "W.W.J.D?" I've got a thorn in my side, Yes.
I almost bought a short book by Ghandi in which he wrote his thoughts on pacifism. Do you have any readings of his to recommend? I'd like to be exposed to more of his life and teachings.
I feel like saying "sorry" for making some people read this many words with no real conclusion or thesis statement to prove or disprove. Tear this apart, please.
be peace, brothers and sisters
curtis
"Wherever the Spirit is, there is the Church."
Irenaeus of Lyons
"We can tell where the Church is, but we cannot tell where it is not." Timothy Ware
I think Ghandi may be a part of the Church.Only by the Spirit could he have lived this way.
But, human action and human society are not the end all of truth. Humans are hungry for something they would not gain even if they were to achieve outward peace in this world.
Would anyone care if I made a new post about an Orthodox engagement with this stuff?it would be a cool way to engage the East.
do it, to it ... thomas.
Greetings strangers (with the exception of Thomas and Montague),
I'm not sure that loving Love is the same as loving God. Particularly because God is not an abstract concept but a being with a story. "Love" per se does not have a history. While it may very well be that salvation comes to those who would be lovers of love, I'm not sure that we could call them Christian without any attachment to or loyal participation in the story of God and God's people.
Firstly, I've always thought God's people were all people, although I imagine you're refering to the Jews. I guess I was under the assumption that God's people are neither Greeks, nor Jews, nor any other religous faction outside that established by Christ. (I think we could have a seperate discussion on how much the Old Testament properly portrays the story and character of God after His ultimate revelation in Jesus).
Also, what constitutes 'loyal participation' to you? I think acting as Gandhi did-- on behalf of the poor, the orphans, the helpless, the opprossed, and those advantage of for no other reason than love-- would undoubtedly place someone in the story of the God revealed in Jesus.
If God is not Love then what is he? I view the terms as interchangable.
Pre-Lastly, we may have different interpretations of what God is. I hold that God is Love.
Lastly. I don't understand what you say that love does not have a history.
Post-Lastly, you said, "it may very well be that salvation comes to those who would be lovers of love." Does this mean you believe salvation is admitted to those outside of Christ?
Just need some clarification.
---Timothy
Love is way too abstract. THAT is the issue. RIchard Hayes goes as far as to say that Love is not one of the focal images of the NT because itis too abstract. Instead, he says the cross is what we should speak of, when we would usually put the word love. Of course he means a whole story of Jesus when he says cross.
You might say Ghandi embodied this, BUT he was not strictly speaking always for nonviolence. He did it because he thought it was right, but he reserved the use of violence in some rare circumstances.
The point of being a "Christian" is not just to love (whatever that might be). Even if it were, people dont need to know of Jesus to "love" (this may be your point). sin, or the fall, or whatever you want to point to in how screwed up our world is, comes from a perversion of love/eros/desire. The perversion is that our desire goes somewhere other than God. God is the end (telos) of all things and the only rightly directed desire is desire for God.
One cannot just heal oneself of this. Jesus who was incarnated by the Spirit came and gave the Spirit, that the Spirit might continue the incarnation. Only in the Spirit can this perverted love/eros/desire be healed.
In this healing one goes to the poor, the creatures, etc., but one is to "Love the creature as it leads to the creator." (Wesley, Augustine) If you want to say that Ghandi or others lived like Jesus (in some ways), maybe even more so than "Christians", or that he will not go to hell (whatever that is - see previous posts), that is fine.
In the end of time, God will be ALL in ALL, dwelling among his people. Every tear will be wiped away, every person will be valued, there will be no more hunger, or pain, etc. This is the coming future, a new regime. What it means to be a Christian is to live towards this, to lean into it, and to work as if it were taking over (because it is). ALL of this comes from a narrative, not from human reason. Human reason can say "all you need is love", and yet provides little help with this, and still does not really point you to community with the God who is Trinity, who is community.
--sidenote to 'love'--
When I say 'love' I'm not speaking in the abstract, Beatles 'love is all you need' sense of the word, although I think this is true, just as I think saying 'Jesus is all you need' is true too.
Instead, when I say love I mean grace, compassion, justice, healing, forgiveness, patience, kindness, not envying/ boasting, keeping no records of wrong, rejoicing in truth, active, and all the other ways it depicted verbally and in action in the biblical narrative (and other narratives too). Obviously these are all actions that are expressed in the only form possible of expressing anything in an intelligible manner: through a Narrative.
sorry if I didn't specifiy earlier. I guess I thought the 'ects' were enough.
(end sidenote)
---
(Moreoever)
I agree with everything Thomas says, and I also fail to see how this refutes or makes my original statement false-- even if it was more vague than I had intended. I would strongly say that Ghandi would agree with you too Thomas-- I swear I read something along the exact same lines as 'Love the creature as it leads to the creator' coming from him too. One of his biggest appeals to me is how concentrated he is on the Divine; his devotion to God makes me look like a practicing atheist. His concentration on God is first and foremost and he was completely about community with God in his actions both within and outside of his relations with others.
Thomas, I don't understand why you draw a such a distinction between Narrative and reason. All Narratives work within their own, often overlapping, structures of reason, and even a completely 'postmodern' person without a meta-narrative can only be such in a theory of ambiguity, for there is no living outside of narrative if existence itself is a meta-narrative simply because it exists within the inescapableness Time and Space.
---Timothy
ps. let's get together when your next in K3
Nothing Relavent:
I think the term 'meta-love' is fitting. I could start using it and say I coined it.
Hey Guys... I know I am entering this discussion kind of late. (And it's pretty intimidating to even say anything to y'all... especially if I imagine standing in the same room with you all. Yikes! But here I go.) You all have made great points. The one thing I have been thinking, though, in all this talk about loving Love vs. loving God - what about God loving us? Does it really make you a Christian to love Love/God? 'Cause that reduces Christianity to something you do. For instance, Gandhi accomplished so much, as an individual and under the banner of however many different religions/love/peace/whatever. Does that make him more of a Christian (or a "better" Christian") than any of us, people who seek God but may never see as many results of our love in our lifetimes? Or is what makes a Christian the fact that He loved us first, therefore we love. Then of course, if you value the book of James as more than an epistle of straw, it follows that because of being the beloved of God, what we do is very essential to our faith. So I guess there is still the question of loving Love/God, but I just like to remember that it starts with Love/God loving us. Otherwise we'd have no love to give.
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