As a child I learned that Jesus and his church were principally about love, forgiveness and redemption. He brought a new dimension of hope and salvation to faith and began a movement that spread to all corners of the world and thrives two millennia later.
And yet, it appears that Christianity, as a whole, has been moving away from the teachings of Jesus ever since that first Easter. The public face of Christianity has become one of superiority, judgment, exclusiveness, anger and bureaucracy. The Sermon on the Mount would be a joke and a sign of liberal weakness today in many churches. The admonition to hate the sin but love the sinner has evolved to hating both the sin and the sinner. Those who disagree with us or don’t live the life we proscribe are doomed to Hell, case closed.
Two groups, the Moneychangers in the Temple and the Pharisees, triggered the most resentment in Jesus, and yet most Christian leaders today act as direct descendants of the Pharisees in that they are more dedicated to interpreting the fine points of the scriptures to justify their positions than considering the verses’ overall intention, and they foster wealthy and self-serving church bureaucracies that are far from anything Jesus ever intended.
Did Jesus intend a confusion of Christian churches, all of whom declare only they have correctly interpreted the scriptures and know the way to salvation? Did He hope for two thousand years of wars, crusades and hatred based upon differences over the fine points? Did He desire that Christian faiths differ so fundamentally on the issues of salvation and worship?
The Bible is a document open to an endless range of interpretations. By emphasizing certain verses and conveniently ignoring others, virtually anything can be and has been justified; including slavery, fascism, genocide and subjugation of women; by means of selective interpretation. It seems arrogant and way too convenient to state that, while the entire Bible is the word of God, some of God’s words are more important than others.
It appears to me that an underlying problem is that Christianity is much more the church of Paul than of Jesus. When Christians wish to assert their superiority or express their anger they more often quote Paul than Jesus. Paul took the words and acts of Jesus and used them as a base to build an organization that could and would spread throughout the civilized world. But in doing that, he introduced a new tone of anger, judgment and superiority that remained, like a worm in an apple, as a subtle infection that would weaken Christianity from then until now. For Paul, every Christian group that had even a slightly different perspective were heretics to be condemned and rooted out.
Throw in the angry God of the Old Testament and it gets pretty hard to love, understand and forgive.
I propose a new church that would be based entirely upon the four gospels and the words of Jesus, with the Old Testament as a source of reference. Everything else that is now part of the New Testament would be set aside, including the writings of Paul. Although I understand that the gospels themselves were written long after Jesus and contain their own author-generated prejudices, a faith based upon a discussion of just the life and words of Jesus would be so much closer to the original intentions. This church would:
* Be a discussion and study forum based upon the Jewish synagogues that were, after all, the reality of Jesus’ world and time.
* Begin with an acceptance that Jesus lived and was at least a holy man, and build a basic belief structure upon that.
* Consider the earliest known versions of the gospels and form a new version of the New Testament based upon those. There could be an openness to considering other early texts that purport to be based upon the life and words of Jesus.
* Always base every decision, act and declaration upon a firm foundation of love, forgiveness, tolerance and redemption.
* Avoid, as much as possible, evolving a cumbersome and inhibiting bureaucratic structure. This church would be a bottom-up hierarchy where the local (and on-line) communities would be its foundation.
* Accept with open arms all who wish to participate and contribute.
* Always remain alert for the early warning signs of exclusivity, superiority or judgment.
Perhaps there is still time to get it right. Perhaps we can take what we’ve learned over the last two thousand years and build something that meets the Founder’s aspirations. Better late than never.
Dick Sem is a security and workplace violence consultant (http://www.SemSecurity.com) based in Wisconsin.
He has been married for 36 years and has two sons and two grandchildren. He graduated from Marquette University.
Author: Richard Sem
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
