From Jesus and Paul to You and Me - A Religious History
Feb 14th, 2010 by Gene
A sketch of the Christian story by Gene Marshall, January 2010
Jesus did not establish a religion; he was and remained a Jew for his whole life. For him there was no New Testament, no Christian religious practice, no intimation that there would ever be such a thing. Rather, in his own being he felt the dawn of a new day for humanity as a whole. This is what he proclaimed: the advent of a New Adam, a New Humanity, the coming of a “Kingdom” on Earth characterized by a direct experience of the Eternal in our temporal here and how. This down-to-Earth yet Eternal dawning meant the advent of a humanity that Trusted “Mysterious Reality” as a loving father; that Loved Mysteroius Reality, self, and others unconditionally; that experienced a Freedom that gave immediate authority, rooted in authenticity rather than in the traditions and laws of scribes and moral teachers. He saw in his own ministry the dawning of this Eternal Kingdom among those whose lives were being healed. He signaled the coming of an Eternally sponsored restoration of authenticity for all humanity, not just for that part of humanity that would call themselves “Christians.”
Similarly, Paul did not establish a religion; he was and remained a Jew for his whole life. For him there was no New Testament, no Christian religious practice, no intimation that there would ever be such a thing. He did not distance himself from Jews. He shared his profound awakening in Synagogues with Jews and with Gentiles who were attracted to the rich heritage of Judaism. Paul viewed himself as a true descendent of Abraham, whom he viewed as an example of the Trust in Mysterious Actuality that he, Paul, was experiencing. Like Jesus, Paul saw in himself, and in those being healed by his message, the dawning of an Eternal Transformation for all humanity. He called this New Humanity being “In Christ.” He believed that everyone was soon to participate in this Eternal dawning of New Life on Earth.
With this dawning of a down-to-Earth experience of a New Humanity came a companion dawning of how far humanity had fallen from this Eternity-related Humanity that is our birthright, our essence, our authenticity. The deeper we see into the truth of our authenticity, the deeper we see into the truth of our loss of that authenticity. And this loss, this sorrow, this tragedy, this depravity of our authentic humanity is seen by Paul and by Jesus as very profound. In our shallow humanisms, we have recoiled from this profound view of human depravity.
Both ancient Greeks and contemporary Christians have misunderstood the nature of this depravity. We have twisted the New Testament view into a depreciation of nature, of our bodily flesh, of our birthing and dying biology. But this was not what the fall meant within the Jewish context in which Jesus and Paul worked. In this heritage God, the Holy (Awesome) Final (Mysterious) Reality, was Present in the events of the material world, in birth, in death, in limitation, in possibility. The very Word “God” pointed to the EVERY-THING-NESS that is present in each and every thing, to the NO-THING-NESS out of which all things come and into which all things return. In this heritage “God” did not mean something good by human standards, but THE FINALITY “whose historical doings” define what is good. Final Reality is good because it is Real, not because it lines up with some humanly invented purposes or with the desires of some human psyche. The fall was the fall from finding joy in our actual, created goodness. Fulfilled Life meant living within the actual everyday experience of that Eternal Mysteriousness that is manifest within the temporal as our Good, our Father, our Mother, our God.
Humanity is far removed from this understanding of Fulfilled Life, even though such Living is our birthright, our authenticity, our essence. Even among those in whom this Fulfilled Life has an active presence, the fall remains. Paul did not see the arrival of this New Humanity as complete within himself. He spoke of pressing on toward the full stature of Christ. And Jesus never spoke of himself as perfect. It was his followers who fictionalized him into a portrait of perfect authenticity. “Jesus” like “Buddha” and other exemplars became symbols for perfected authenticity. We do not actually know the extent to which these exemplars actually were perfect in their own Trust, Love, and Freedom. Like all of us they meditated and prayed in order to resist the “devil” and to be open to the fullness of Spirit. Jesus spoke of perfection as an opening in our sick souls toward an impending future created not by us, but by the Reality worshiped by Moses and the prophets. Whatever was true for the historical Jesus, we are all sick and in need of healing. We are all fallen beings, part of a humanity that participates universally in an ongoing and profound fall from realism.
In contemporary language, we can describe this fall as rationalism, moralism, and sentimentalism.
We are all rationalists, not fully open to Mystery, nor curious about the Unknown, but content with our own inherited or self-constructed meanings. We are uncomfortable with not knowing and with knowing that we will never know the meaning of life. Making meaning is a healthy function of our minds, but our minds are finite, our meanings limited. By our human standards Reality is absurd. We are all loath to find fault with our own unrealistic views. We prefer to blame Reality for not being “meaningful” by our criteria. This is our fall from realism, from authenticity, from tasting Fulfilled or Eternal Life. Conservative Christians tend to reduce Trust in the Mystery to belief in a set of doctrinal assertions. We all have beliefs like we all have toenails, but our beliefs are humanly created and open to change. Solidified beliefs are a sign of having fallen into rationalism. There are no final Christian beliefs. Faith means Trust, not belief. And our thinking about the meaning of Trust is an ever evolving theology. Liberal Christians tend to reduce Trust in the Mystery to a humanly created worldview of meaning they find comforting. When they use the word “God” (if they use it at all), it is used as a human idea rather than an Awesome Un-understandable Experience. Thus they play games within their meaning-making minds rather than explore Jesus’ and Paul’s transrational Leap of Faith – Trust in directly experienced Mysterious Reality. Conservatives and liberals, Christians, and other-than-Christians have all fallen into rationalism and continually do so. We all opt for the security of dwelling in products of our meaning-making minds rather than leaping into radical openness to the Mystery-of-What-is-Actually-So.
We are all moralists, not fully Free from our self-constructed self image and habits of personality – not Free from our always limited views of good and evil – not Free from our false expectations. We do not wish to hear the story of Adam and Eve as a story about our fall from realism into our own self-constructed standards of good and evil. Adam and Eve ate a lie – the lie that we humans can know what is good and what is evil. Such final knowledge is forbidden the human species. We live in an existence of uncertainty about the right things to do. We face ambiguities in all our choices. When we think we have lasting answers about how to behave, we have fallen into moralism. Rather than allow Reality to be the judge of ourselves, others, and everything, we judge Reality, ourselves, and others with our own limited standards. We may have heard the saying “Judge not, lest you be judged.” Yet we prefer to judge everything and deny Reality any right to judge our standards of judgment. This deeply rooted moralism squeezes our own soul into a tight box and twists our good intentions into meanness.
And we are all sentimentalists who seek escape from the horrors of the Real into some fantasy world of our own creation. We whitewash ourselves. We whitewash humanity. We avoid the grim realization of the depth of humanity’s flight from Reality and humanity’s fight with Reality. We sometimes praise this fight and this flight rather then view it as our depravity. Sentimentalism is an expression of that universal depravity in which even the saints among us participate. We seek a pleasant and peaceful mind devoid of lucidity about our own depravity and our own lack of dedication to realize our full potential in realistic living. Our sentimentality extends to creating God in our own image, to inventing a Supreme Someone who holds our values and assists us to realize them against the tough Actual Reality that is the God recommended in the Bible for our worship. Instead, we worship illusions. Reality, being Reality, will soon smash our illusions, leaving us in despair. We are indeed a pitiful lot, given to addictive practices to escape our obvious challenges to live in an authentic fashion. Some dismiss such sentimentality as harmless, but it is deadly. Indeed, we take pride in our sentimentality and are sometimes willing to cheat, lie, and murder (if need be) to defend our false sense of things from the Truth. We are all lost on a journey headed for hell, the hell of open despair over a Reality that we cannot stand and that we cannot escape. Our sentimental souls are not open to worship such a grim Reality. We deny or suppress our horror of this human condition and our need for redemption from this despair-destined existence. We have all lost our authenticity in sentimentality.
The horrific depth of our rationalism, moralism, and sentimentality constitutes a description of that all-inclusive state of affairs called “Sin” in the letters of Paul. From this “Sin” humanity is being delivered by the redemption that dawned in Jesus. “Redemption” is a much misused word. We need to restore it to its simple meaning: being restored to our actual, Reality-based authenticity from which we have fallen. This redemption has many descriptions and cryptic sayings that point to it, but three words can hold in mind the core qualities of our ever deepening experience of this New yet Eternity-Related, Primordial Humanity: (1) Trust of the Absolute Mysteriousness of Reality and Reality’s welcome Home to that Mystery rather than a rationalism that seeks to shave Mystery down to our own meager orderings, (2) Freedom rather than a moralism with which we can prove ourselves right by our own efforts to obey our own standards, (3) Love of the actual, directly experienced Eternal Reality which supports and includes self and others, rather than a sentimentality that glories in our own fantasies.
Our states of rationalism, moralism, and sentimentality constitute a many-faceted flight from Reality and a many-faceted fight with Reality. This is a fight that we are destined to lose. This is an attempt to flee from a Reality we cannot escape. This flight or fight is a story that can only end badly. It will end in a despair that kills all joy.
All of us, not some of us, have fallen into this tragic condition of Sin. And all of us, not some of us, are saints. In our essential beings we are saints of Trust, Love, and Freedom. Sainthood is true of all humans in spite of the fact that only a few of us are clearly identified with this Sainthood, and are clearly willing to give up the body of Sin and let Sainthood flourish.
Both Jesus and Paul proclaimed a fast-arriving dawn for the whole of humanity in which this widespread Sin would be wiped away and a full redemption would be enjoyed by all humans. Paul expected this future to happen soon, just as soon as enough Gentiles had been grafted into this amazing unfoldment, just as soon as both Jews and Gentiles could be fully shamed into opening to this final transformation of our humanity.
But what was “soon” for Paul and what was “soon” for God turned out to be different. Here we are over 1900 years after Paul expected Sin to be defeated and Redemption to engulf us all, and Sin is still widespread – perhaps more complicated and horrific than ever. The Eternal Life of Trust, Love, and Freedom is still rare and incomplete, even among those of us who have tasted it.
This is sobering. It must have also been sobering to the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd century followers of Jesus and Paul who had to notice that this universal redemption was unfolding slowly. The “soon” of the original proclamation was to be a “soon” that was going to be later, apparently much later. But they trusted Reality, trusted that “God’s delay” was part of God’s mysterious but good wisdom. Yes, it was a learning experience. Trust required that we the Trusting ones be open to living the delay of the final coming of the universal redemption.
Living the Long Haul
So these first fruits of a new humanity (as they called themselves) began to adapt to an ongoing sinful world and to do so for the long haul. They created religious institutions of Christ-way Judaism. They created new forms of religious leadership, wrote books, had intense discussions, mastered schools of thought, canonized the “best” writings, and excluded other writings. All this was done in order to remain clear and committed to what was true redemption and what was not. A huge movement came into being. Outsiders called them “Christians.” The name stuck. But God, they claimed, was still working his plan to redeem all humanity, not just those few of us who practiced these new religious inventions.
When Constantine provided the opportunity, this fast expanding “Christian” movement assumed responsibility for the political system of the entire Roman Empire. They thought through how to use its laws and coercive powers to restrain the enduring evil and provide more space for the redemptive ministries. No matter what we now think about much of what they did, we can still stand amazed at their energy and achievements. They built a massive church organization with priests and monks and nuns in almost every village of Europe. They established bishops to minister to kings and other aristocrats. They established a pope to stand in creative relation to the emperors and other courts of power. They fought against heresies of Hebraic moralism and heresies of Greek rationalism and heresies of sentimentalism, old and new. They organized intense monastic movements, one after another, to compensate for the laxity and delusions that came from working with the masses of civilization.
They built Christendom! Glory Hallelujah, they built Christendom. It was indeed a glorious achievement. And it was a tragic achievement, riddled with all the wrongs that every huge human achievement tends to manifest. These socially powerful institutions of religion tempted the greedy and power-crazed persons (of whom there are always many) to use that assembled power for their own rationalistic, moralistic, and sentimental escapes from Reality. The once Spirit-inspiring ministries were warped into patterns of cultural, political, and economic oppression. This condition called forth reforms more radical than those of the religious orders. “The Protestant Reformation” and the “Roman Catholic Counter Reformation” were both very deep changes. These far-reaching reforms had to do combat with the established hierarchy of Christendom. Luther identified the Pope of his day with Satan, and risked his life to challenge the Sin of this decayed Christendom. He broke with that hierarchy and established a new hierarchy. The Counter Reformation attempted to reform the old hierarchy and reestablish some workable unity among its salvageable elements.
Christendom split into many fragments of reform experiments, but all of them were reforms of Christendom. Christendom did not end, it proceeded forward in a multiplicity of competing fingers. These many fingers of religious invention endure to this day. They carry a grand heritage, and they also carry horrific perversions of the initial impetus of that heritage. And they are all dying. All of Christendom is passing away. We live in the last days of Christendom. Its two-story metaphorical language has already died as a powerful and meaningful means of communication. The corresponding institutions of religion will follow.
When we attend a typical congregation of Christendom, we find religious practices that express no awareness of the death of the two-story metaphor of heaven and earth. At least, members of these congregation pretend that they are unaware that the Final Mystery can no longer be spoken of as “up above,” and that contemporary citizens of the modern world must talk about their experience of the Final Mystery as shining through the everyday events and processes of the natural world and the course of history. Those who lived in earlier eras found the two-story metaphor useful. Without condemning them as stupid for their use of their metaphorical language, we must translate their metaphors into our own quite different metaphorical language. This is a necessary religious transformation and it leads us to a new sociological wineskin for the wine of Holy Spirit (that is, Trust, Love, and Freedom). We live in the last days of Christendom.
It is not, however, the end of the redemptive mission. We live in the early days of a new vital form of Christian community, a new wineskin for Eternal Spirit. There are still those who are living in the Spirit (in the Trust, Love, and Freedom) that was manifest in Jesus and Paul and in that ever enlarging host of mighty witnesses. But the sociological shape of this entire mission is undergoing a transformation at least as huge and drastic as the construction of Christendom itself, perhaps as huge as the Jesus-inspired dawning itself, perhaps as huge as the Moses-led impetus 34 Centuries ago. Perhaps it is as huge as the time of the great prophets of Israel, the Buddha, the Upanishads, Lao Tzu, Zarathusra, and many others. We are living in a time of Spirit resurgence and religious invention comparable to all these past upwellings of Spirit and religious creativity. And our era of religious invention is taking place in an interreligious fashion reaching back to many and various sources of inspiration – Augustine, Mohammed, Thomas Aquinas, Hildegaard of Bingham, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, and many others in India, Tibet, Ireland, China, Japan, Africa, and Native America. Innumerable times and places are lighting up with their gifts of Eternal awareness available for translation from their ancient metaphors to the metaphors of these amazingly creative times.
For Christians, for those of us who carry the primal impetus of Jesus and Paul and Mark and Matthew and Luke and John and so on, we need to date our current ferment of renewal and reconstruction to a droll yet comical Dane named Søren. Kierkegaard initiated Christian witness into a period of existential reinterpretation that was carried forward by other famous names like: Karl Barth, Reinhold Niebuhr, Paul Tillich, Richard Niebuhr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Rudolf Bultmann plus many others whose work whirls in dialogue with these luminaries – women like Suzanne de Dietrich and Simone Weil, men like Thomas Merton and Bede Griffiths. This list of creative men and women is large and still unfolding – Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox – European, North American, Latin American, African, Asian. We have an ecumenical and planet-wide Christian reconstruction taking place. Diversity will be one of its features. Yet we can also expect a deep synthesis to be taking place. We can expect these witnesses to reveal the oneness of our essential humanity of Trust, Love, and Freedom. We can expect these many witnesses to reveal a fresh grasp of the Oneness of the Triune experience: (1) The Awesome Final Eternal Reality directly experienced, (2) The Awed portion of humanity, a New View of the Body of Christ, and (3) The flow of Awe toward the Awe states of our essential humanness, toward Trust, Love, and Freedom.
This emerging Christian reconstruction will be limited in numbers of people compared with the everyone-a-Christian approach of the Middle Ages. Christianity will become more monastic in quality – less withdrawn than classical monasticism, but still small, disciplined cells of people yoked in planetary networks. Life in these networks will be intense and challenging, but the numbers will be relatively few. In the United States for example, we might expect the number of reconstructed Christian practitioners to become, at the height of its development, about one percent of the population – four million people in a disciplined network of nurture and mission – people who drink from the deep well of Christian history and minister to the whole body of contemporary humanity. And we can expect that this network of disciplined people will have more constructive impact upon the course of planetary history than all the existing congregations of Christendom. We can expect this reconstruction of Christian practice to be small in numbers, but mighty in inward and social impact.
And who will these people be? They will be men and women, straight and gay, every race, every fragment of religious upbringing. They will be people who can read and do read (only about 20 percent of U.S. citizens now read at least one book a year), people who are able and willing to master the core of the Christian heritage, people who are open to all religious wisdom from whatever source, people who have the resources to learn leadership skills, people who are willing to work with and provide leadership to the poorest and least privileged, people who are willing to live in an ever deepening journey into their true humanity, people who are willing to pay attention to the actual course of history and take initiatives that are relevant to the core issues of that progression. Yes, these reconstructed Christians will be relatively few in number, but mighty in impact.
And we who are this new formation of Christian practice must not revert to the old ideal of everyone-a-Christian. In the future there can be no Christian nations, no Christian empires. Not only are such ideals oppressive in this interreligoius era, but they dilute the intensity of what it means to be members of a Christian community. If we are committed to drawing ever larger numbers of people into our reconstructed Christian practice, we will inevitably dilute that practice. We must be content with inspiring and enriching a small number of disciplined saints. If having great numbers is important to our status, we are still trapped in the era of Christendom. Quality not quantity must be our focus.
Yet, we must not be a closed circle. A post-Christendom Christian practice must be as open to welcoming more people as it is “realistic” to do so. Indeed, we must overcome any fear we may have of larger numbers. And these are real fears: our fear of dilution; our fear of strangers; our fear of responsibility for more people; our fear of the imaginative creativity it will take to organize large numbers of people, to nurture them, and to prepare them for mission to this existing age.
We confront a paradox: Jesus and Paul taught us intensity and small group enthusiasm, but they also taught us that this redemption is for the whole of humanity. We who join this redemption may be few in number, but we join a mission that envisions a universal redemption for all humans.
So, let us be grateful for deep qualities of soul, however small this renders our assembly. And let us be grateful for any increase in the numbers of great souls that our reconstruction of Christianity allows to be attracted to the Christian branch of the Universal Body of Christ. And let us never forget that there are other-than-Christian branches of what we call “the Body of Christ.” As John’s gospel said, it is always true that Jesus “has sheep who are not of our fold.”
But some of us who remember Jesus, and understand the revolution in inner being that he initiated, need to rebuild the fold of those who remember him and honor him as their portrait of human authenticity. Some of us need to do this for our times. Perhaps it is me. Perhaps it is you.