Theology and Religion

Jesus\Culture

The huge success of the video “Why I Hate Religion. But Love Jesus” by Jefferson Bethke highlights a current trend in Christianity of moving away from traditional language, doctrine, worship and theology for what is perceived as being free and more authentic. It appeals to a generation disillusioned with standard religion and are fluent in constructing lifestyles gleaned from the global media space.

We now have non-Denominational Churches and Individual (or more commonly couples) starting ministries all with a slick website and the latest paperback. The worship group has risen to international pop stardom. The rhetoric of the ministries, tinged with end of days urgency, talks of “mandate”, “equipping”, “empowering” and “generation” all to give a sense of a unique and immanent purpose. A mandate sounds grander and more authorative than a conviction or commandment. 

Isn’t this just a reflection of the culture of today? If these new ministries are attracting people to Christianity then that must be a good thing. But do they reflect the truth? Traditional religion may just be the practice of empty rituals and cultural observances now that we have got something new we able to be free and authentic in our faith. Yet language has given them away because when these ministries speak about a generation, a revival or missional lifestyle and a Jesus culture, the message is you don’t need to belong to a religious culture you can belong to our counter (Jesus) culture

Not the least stroke of a pen

To anyone hurt by the church, who is sickened by the double standards, hypocrisy and self-righteousness of many in the Church would agree with Bethke’s opening line of his poem.

What if I told you Jesus came to abolish religion

It feels right to our gut instinct, after all didn’t Jesus call the Pharisees a brood of vipers and turn over the tables in the temple?  If Bethke was just venting with a group of friends about his experience it would be one thing but this video went viral across the internet with people either loving or loathing him.  I have to say the video spoke to me as well. However on reflection I have to say it has major flaws. In what is a fitting response Jesus says

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.

Jesus did not come to abolish the religion (law) of his people, in the truly radical manner of Jesus he come to fulfil it. As well as practising the religion of his people he also initiated a new covenant and sacrament. If we hate religion, what is it that we love in Jesus? If religion offends us or theology does not excite then it is because we do not have a correct view of them.  The law that was fulfilled in Jesus should it be disregarded or should we be pure in heart and more righteous than the scribes and the Pharisees.

The Transparent Heart: Doxology and Orthopathy

Theology once described as the ‘Queen of the Sciences’ has come to be regarded as being difficult, pedantic and irrelevant. Yet how can the contemplation and talk of our Holy Creator of heaven and earth, who made man male and female in his image and who was the author of our salvation be anything but the Queen of the Sciences (Sciences used in the Mediaeval sense). Our theology informs all our other views (or at least it should). Theology is also peculiar in that what we say and believe must flow into our worship and our actions. If not we have flawed theology.

Orthodoxy or correct belief has within it the concept of correct praise (doxa can be both belief and praise) as well as correct practice. Orthopathy a new term to mean correct feeling comes into importance if we are to tease apart the nature of Orthodoxy we must see that a true feeling and true worship must reside in the transparent heart. True feeling will purify our motives in good action, and worship will seek to perfect our works. 

Further Up, Further In

In our attempt to create a new, authentic and more appealing Christianity we have done nothing but fragment our experience, turned the Gospel into a marketing ploy and as an endlessly reconfigurable lifestyle choice. If we have done anything by “Hating religion” it is that we have drifted further from God. To appeal to a young generation is not an easy thing to do, but offering spiritualised copy of the culture they live in will not succeed

In the “Discarded Image” C.S Lewis encourages us to look at the view of heaven in the middle ages imagination. “Earth is outside the city wall” and we are looking in “within; the vast, lighted concavity filled with music and life. And, looking in, we do not see, like Meredith's Lucifer, ' the army of unalterable law', but rather the revelry of insatiable love”.  A similar idea is expressed in the final part of the Narnia series. Having entered Narnia from England, they enter a new bigger Narnia "world within world, Narnia within Narnia", "more real and more beautiful than the Narnia down below".

In C.S Lewis’s view in “The Last Battle” the heaven we are seeking, our true home is not someplace else it is further up and further in. Entering Narnia from England, they now enter a better Narnia, a bigger one, in which England (a better England) exists, Lucy describes it thus “like an onion: except that as you continue to go in and in, each circle is larger than the last.”

Like the children in Narnia I believe that as we delve deeper into religion, it is that we will gain more than arrogantly throwing off everything. This is not to suggest that we must observe everything nor that we must believe every doctrine or practice. It means that we should with an open heart and a discerning mind we must look to what our “religion” is and find the path of truth.

Man & The World

Disembodied Christ

The current focus of the church at the moment, seems to either emphasis the spiritual or the intellectual aspects of Christianity. One looks to the spirit and emotions, the other to reason and thinking for the gauge of truth, yet these are false categories. Without the spirit reason grows brittle and dead and without reason, spiritualism and emotions can mislead, blowing about like leaves.

Yet we miss a very important aspect of Christianity, Christ himself, and the physical incarnation of God. We dwell on his teachings, and the act of salvation. We do not seem to dwell on the incarnation of Jesus, yes his birth is celebrated at Christmas but again it seems only in the sense of here is our salvation, not that the Kingdom of God so longed for has come. We end up with a disembodied Christ, an idea or a feeling.

"What had been a matter of alignment with external verities becomes a matter of internal conviction. Thus the problem of subjectivity is born, what Lewis describes as the 'great movement of internalisation' that leads necessarily to the 'aggrandisement of man and dessication of the outer universe'. The outer universe is dessicated because the modern mind believes itself separate from it. To be separate from the body and from the universe is to render it completely other, an object for scientific study and mastery. Thus man sees his own mind as he had once thought of God-separate from creation, maintaining an unlimited "god's eye" view. He sees everything and need not be affected by anything. For the thinkers O'Conner read, there is no difference between the belief that one has achieved this "god's eye" view and the belief that one has become God"

Hollow Men

This “great movement of internalisation” means we are no longer feel attached to anything, either our bodies or the world around us. Our sense of self has shrunk to our own immediate thoughts, we have become hollowed out and the world can be manipulated and distorted to our own personal view. An independent truth has now been replaced by an internal conviction. We do not feel any disconnect between saying one thing and doing another, or if we do we simply modify our view of the world

Is it any wonder then that what we feel (or think) on Sunday has almost no significance for us on Monday?  Many sermons are preached on this, countless pastors wring their hands wondering how is it that my congregation is simply unable to put into practice the belief they profess in Church. The fact is that our inability to connect with the world is because we do not see anything holy in our fellow man or the world. As C.S Lewis explains “Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses.” and “…it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit..” therefore “it may be possible to for each to think too much of his own potential glory in the hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbour.”

Desiccation of the Outer Universe

The outer universe has become desiccated because we have no relationship to it, we derive no meaning from it nor any season of sanctity. Even a Christian approach to the environment would tend towards view the issue as a justice or stewardship role we have again taken God’s creation and viewed it in terms of ourselves.

Yet if we look to Job we see that when Yahweh responds to Job’s repeated pleadings the response is not what we or Job perhaps expected, it was an interrogation of Job about his knowledge and part in the grand creation. The response is full of God’s creation, the grandeur, power and we see aspects outside of the realm of man. This perspective humbles and silences Job, not because his afflictions are of no importance but simply to put the position of Job into the context of the whole of creation.

To our modern sensibilities this feels like a slap in the face and to the extent that Job and his friends were talking about God this was. God is sovereign in this world, and though sin has tainted it, God in creation declared that it was good, to overlook creation and our neighbours as a reflection of the character of God will only lead us down the path of inward looking self-centred view.