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 An independent truth has now been replaced by an internal conviction.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.