Posted on 06/15/2002 3:12:46 AM PDT by BraveMan
''Lord, I want to be a Christian in my heart'' - Negro spiritual
Lord, help me. I'm about to do what smart people never do -- talk religion in public.
I do this because of a woman in Russia and a man in Pennsylvania. More about her in a moment. As for him, he stood up from the audience during a Q&A that followed a speech I gave at a university some months back. I'm usually pretty relaxed during those sessions. I've done them enough that I'm seldom surprised by any question.
Then this guy stood up and asked, ``Are you a Christian?''
There was perhaps a half-second pause between his question and my saying yes. I hesitated because I wasn't sure -- I mean this in a literal sense -- exactly what I was being asked. Did he want to know whether I trust in the divinity of Jesus and struggle to understand and live by His teachings? That's how I decided to interpret it. But he could just as easily have been asking me about politics or scandal.
Because ''Christian'' seldom means simply Christian these days. A minister friend and I were talking about this the other day as we chewed over the way the Catholic Church has handled the problem of pedophiliac priests. With all its evasions and denials, all its weasel-words and blame-shifting, I complained, the church seems more like a subsidiary of Enron than an earthly representative of the Almighty.
It's not the sort of behavior I want to be associated with. Or judged by.
AN ACCEPTED CODE
But it's not just the Catholic Church. In the larger scope, it's the fact that, over the past 20 years, Christianity in America has been co-opted by one side of the political spectrum to such a degree that it has become an accepted code for opposition to gun control, gay rights, feminism, the First Amendment.
Hence, the half-second of hesitation. Because by that standard, I'm probably not much of a Christian at all. But there is, thankfully, another standard.
Which brings me to the Russian woman, Tatyana Sapunova, 27 years old. Two weeks ago, she was driving with her mother near Moscow when she saw a sign planted by the side of the road. ''Death To Yids,'' it said. She stopped and attempted to tear it down.
That's when the explosive device rigged to the sign exploded. The blast tore through her face, hands and legs. She is reported to have lost sight in one eye. Sapunova, for the record, is not Jewish. In fact, she was baptized a Christian. I have no way of knowing if she still follows that faith or, indeed, any faith.
SCANDAL, WARFARE
I do know this: What she did speaks directly to what faith is supposed to be about -- and too seldom is. These days, religion is a story of scandal or of somebody jockeying for political advantage. A story of warfare over land or the rationalization of suicide bombings. But for some reason, it's seldom a story like this, seldom a story of someone motivated to stand with the outcasts like Christ among the lepers -- a person compelled to do the right thing because it is the right thing.
How many ''Christians'' do you suppose roared past that sign without stopping? Not that Christianity is the brand name of all that is good. How many people of whatever faith and for that matter, how many of no faith at all who are nevertheless pleased to consider themselves moral and decent also did not stop? Why is it this expression of hate did not trouble them enough to take a stand? And what is it about Tatyana Sapunova that it troubled her beyond abiding?
YEARS OF FRUSTRATION
''Are you a Christian?'' the man asks. And in the width of a half-second's pause fall years of frustration with Jim Bakker's lies and Tammy Faye's tears, with Jerry Falwell's bigotry and Oral Roberts' hucksterism, with holier-than-thou secrets and righteous lies and with predation that hides behind a clerical collar. You want to know that saying yes can be about something better than that, that it can denote something higher, humbler, more challenging and more hope-filled.
Then you consider Tatyana Sapunova and you are reminded that it can. So there's no need to hesitate. And indeed, there never was.
But why no arrows at the ministers within Black denominations (Pitt is black) for their embarrassments, i.e. the National Baptist Church whose leader engaged in adultery and embezzellment ? What about the "shakedowns" and seductions of Rev. Jesse Jackson, and the legal fraud committed by Rev. Al Sharpton ? Why are his criticisms directed entirely at what are considered white, conservative churches and ministers ? What about the liberal churches with their marginal Christian practices and beliefs ?
This could have been another remarkable Pitts essay (remember his post 9-11 column ?), but he has resorted to cliches. Tanya's story deserved a better column than this.
This sentance seems to confuse things a bit, but it is revealing of the author's confusion of the issues. He seems to associate certain political and social codes with religious belief and identifies religious belief with the label 'Christianity', but hasn't connected to a personal relationship with God in direct terms.
Reads as though the original question by a man in Pennsylvania was fairly astute.
One very large division within Christianity takes the position that the Word of God is so powerful and so important that no single person should undertake to study it alone.
It's a given that hucksters aren't confined to any particular racial segments . . .
I go for the "public confession" myself, which is done for the exact same reason.
BTW---Does he suggest any more people risk their lives by removing booby-trapped signs?
Well, that's utter nonsense.
Falwell, for example, is a very, very good man. His "sin" in the eyes of Pitts, one must presume? He's vocal on social issues. Heaven forbid!!!! The pastor of a large church actually speaking out on social issues!!! The horror!!! I can assure you that Falwell has done far, far more good in his life than Mr. Pitts will ever even dream about, but you see.........that just doesn't matter.
No, I respect Christians who speak out. I respect Christians who refuse to roll over when society tells them to "just shut up and keep it in a church building on Sunday morning". I respect Christians who understand that this country WAS founded upon Christian values (it amuses me to no end when I see threads here on FR every now and then that twist themselves inside out to refute that) and realize that those same values need to be protected from constant onslaught.
I respect Christians who get out and fight for candidates or laws or a referendum which echoes their beliefs. I respect Christians who aren't afraid to call a spade a spade.
No one ever said that Christians should be pious little wallflowers, but no one can argue that our 21st Century American Society sure as all hell is doing all it can to shove 'em under the rug in hopes that they'll just go away.
I understand confession to re-enter into a relationship with God is only possible if the priest or intermediary is holy. For this reason, I find a conession through Christ Himself is the most practical and personal.
I understand there are those who believe that lessor intermediaries in the Catholic Church may also perform that function with respect to the confessing person, yet there seems to be an incredible amount of hesitance amongst the clergy to formally speak out against homosexuality in the priesthood and even more concern regarding the identity of their actions as either valid or legitimate?
Holiness seems to be of a bit sterner, simpler stuff than this.
What's wrong with this picture where these basics aren't intuitively grasped? IMHO, even the existance of debate on the topic is an indicator of unholiness putrifying the vine.
It means; do you follow Christ?
Actually, from the very beginning, Christianity was a church. And from the very beginning, it was plagued with weak, very human leaders and followers.
A personal relationship with God is found in many religions.
A personal relationship based on scripture makes everyone his or her own pope in deciding what is right or wrong.
The cross is the example of the church: There is a vertical, which is our relationship to God: Worship, prayer, and obedience. THe horizontal relationship is our relationship to others, and the fellowship of the church that nourishes us: we are to bear each other's burdens.
The scandal is about bishops who are weak and have become CEO's instead of Pastors (shepherds) which is why we are praying for them. All of them undoubtably have a relationship to GOd, but they have forgotten they are called to "feed my sheep".
Marchesi's points was aptly illustrated decades ago by C.S. Lewis in The Screwtape Letters. A devil named Screwtape writes to a novice tempter, explaining that "one of our great allies at present is the Church itself":
Do not misunderstand me. I do not mean the Church as we see her spread but through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners. That, I confess, is a spectacle which makes our boldest tempters uneasy. But fortunately it is quite invisible to these humans. All your patient sees is the half-finished, sham Gothic erection on the new building estate. When he goes inside, he sees the local grocer with rather an oily expression on his face bustling up to offer him one shiny little book containing a liturgy which neither of them understands, and one shabby little book containing corrupt texts of a number of religious lyrics, mostly bad, and in very small print. When he gets to his pew and looks round him he sees just that selection of his neighbours whom he has hitherto avoided. You want to lean pretty heavily on those neighbours. Make his mind flit to and fro between an expression like 'the body of Christ' and the actual faces in the next pew... If the patient knows that the woman with the absurd hat is a fanatical bridge-player or the man with squeaky boots a miser and an extortioner--then your task is so much the easier. All you then have to do is to keep out of his mind the question 'If I, being what I am, can consider that I am in some sense a Christian, why should the different vices of those people in the next pew prove that their religion is mere hypocrisy and convention?' You may ask whether it is possible to keep such an obvious thought from occurring even to a human mind. It is, Wormwood, it is! Handle him properly and it simply won't come into his head. He has not been anything like long enough with the Enemy to have any real humility yet. What he says, even on his knees, about his own sinfulness is all parrot talk. At bottom, he still believes he has run up a very favourable credit-balance in the Enemy's ledger by allowing himself to be converted, and thinks that he is showing great humility and condescension in going to church with these 'smug,' commonplace neighbours at all. Keep him in that state of mind as long as you can. Your affectionate uncle SCREWTAPE.
Yes, the Catholic Church, and all other Christian churches, ARE full of sinners, even among the clergy; but if Christians allow that fact to undermine their faith, uncle Screwtape has won.
And that position invariably results in a further mindset: that only certain, select individuals, called "pastors", have the authority to teach/preach from the Word of God. When in fact there is nothing in the Bible that remotely suggests such elitism.
What's wrong with Christianity? It patterned itself after the world's power structure and struggles, even after Jesus told us that among us, it would not be as it is with the Gentiles. And one can make a very strong case that the body of Christ has poisoned herself over the centuries with the organized church laity/clergy hierarchy.
Hinduism pretty much gets along without an organized clergy, or even a rationalized and structured liturgy. They are heavy on the equivalent of a "father confessor" in individuals identified as "guru".
I suppose it's possible to operate a "one man church", but even Jesus set the minimum number necessary for a service at three.
Accordingly, I know of no religion which is able to have a personal relationship with God, unless all the persons of that religion are perfect. That fairly well excludes all groups containing men, except one. The One who was both Deity and human, also known as Christ Jesus.
The personal relationship based upon Scripture doesn't make each human a Pope, rather the canon of Scripture which is Divinely provided, affords man an opportunity to remain in faith in Him, discern, decide, and act while remaining in relationship with Him via His terms. This is quite unique from any other possible system or proposed 'religion'.
Those who have a personal relationship based upon Scripture, simply has been elevated to status of Priest who may offer via the High Priest, Christ as intermediary to the Father. The decisions based upon Scripture are based upon His Word, hence God Himself, not upon the selfish decisions of any general believer or isolated human. Therefore this doesn't make everybody their own Pope, but it does elevate each believer to a status never before made available to humans prior to the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross.
Perhaps an analogy exists relating the Cross to the Church, but generally the significance of the Cross is that Jesus Christ as man, died as the Perfect Sacrifice, and was resurrected three days later in fulfillment of Prophecy. The Cross emphasizes His humanity. Without that humanity, there would be no Perfect Sacrifice which we inately could share as propitiation for our position with God.
We definitely are to bear our own burdens and where possible, if in God's will assist those who might be unduly tempted or in harm's way, but even this approach sometimes is frought with arrogant temptations and dangers.
Insofar as any sinner having a relationship with God, that is only possible via repentance and returning to Him so that while He remains immutable in Perfect Character, He might have an opportunity for our relationship to continue.
Indeed, all ministers and priests who have the gifts of teaching are to pastor their flocks.
Now for those who might be too zealous regarding Protestant vs Catholicism, there might very well remain avenues in which God continues to act and the order of the Catholic Church remians obedient to Him. I've seen some positions where it is rigorously believed that a different dispensation arose with the completion of the canon of Scripture, and it is based on rigorous interpretation of Scripture.
I've also seen, where activity of the Holy Spirit I believe continues to act today. Accordingly, the commision of the Catholic Church I suspect is still available for fruitful purpose. On the contrary, though, any believer who slips and instead places human good and human volition first, independent of His will, slips into a nether zone between the Adversary's and God's will, as humanity also has free will. But when that free will acts similar to the "I wills" of the Adversary, then we simply become evidence that one of the devil's devices is succeding, namely to produce a counterfeit system of order independent of God, which was the Adversary's goal every since his fall from the Garden of God.
For these reasons, I'm skeptical concerning the respect which the author pays for the person murdered by the booby-trap while in the commission of a good work. If the good work was in honor and obedience to God's will, then she will obviously be be more blessed in the future. If, however the believer stumbled into a mode of 'Crusaderism", seeking to thrust her will over anothers' independent of God, then the good work simply falls into the evil devices of the Adversary.
As for the the highly publicized failings of many a tele-evangelist, I don't know of any faithful belief which would categorize their malignant behavior as following the will God, although as believers, they may have had their sins atoned and an opportunity to have a relationship with God, there still remains no similar sacifice for evil in our relationship with Him. Instead the believer who falls away simply places themselves as a target for very severe and loving Divine Discipline.
A rigorous word study of the word 'sinner' and 'saint' and then applied to verses and passages containing them provides an interesting study into some deeper ramifications of remaining in fellowship with God.
I still haven't mastered this, but my Counselor I believe has assisted and I place faith in Christ that the best solution and defense is in order.
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