New Meanings are Required

Old Words, Ancient Symbols, and New Meaning

“You are a king, then!” said Pilate. Jesus answered, “You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” “What is truth?” Pilate asked. With this he went out again to the Jews and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him.” John 18:37-38 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6; Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. James 1:26

“Truth” is a difficult word to define and more difficult to discover in the rumble of human existence. The way we interpret the above passages more often than not tells more about us than the meaning of truth. About “truth,” Galileo said, “All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.” And we learn from Emerson that “Reform is affirmative, conservatism negative; conservatism goes for comfort, reform for truth.” Finally, Anais Nin (a Cuban French author) points out, “When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow.” From the Scripture above and from these quotes we discover that truth does not simply mean “verified fact.” Religious truth is personal and active, a way of life, a choice. Pilot didn’t understand this when he asked Jesus, “What is truth?” Jesus’ answer was about living and doing and not about some kind of uninteresting fact.

This brings me to my point: Many Christians take Pilot’s side on the nature of truth. They are coming down on the side of verified fact and are usually scoffed at by the scientific and analytical communities. Jesus was referring to a way of life, a commitment. Jesus came as a reformer and his message of truth was uncomfortable. A state of mind that is defined as “reforming,” induces growth and fulfillment. It is neither static, nor satisfied to sit on ancient words. James says that we shouldn't deceive ourselves but get on our feet and live the truth. Most fundamentalist and conservative Christian don’t understand this or can’t; I don’t know.

Biblical history is sprinkled with metaphor and parable; very little of it can be taken literally or we miss its meaning and its theological truth. And of course it was edited by those with a theo-political agenda; books were thrown out, some left in and words were changed to suit the authorities in the Roman church; it was for the most part written from a dominant male point of view and is steeped in the ancient culture which gave it birth and life. To search for literal truth here is like search for water in the middle of the desert. It’s not literal truth that is the concern, but theological and spiritual truth which is ageless and meaningful.

I find it difficult to maintain that anyone who either belongs to a mainline Christian church or attends a mainline Christian church is more than a conservative with regard to his or her religious faith. They are not reformation-minded. I’m not sure what a liberal Christian would be like, for either you are a Christian or you are not! The issues that divide the conservative from the fundamentalist or orthodox Christian are not theological issues; rather, they are social and political issues such as abortion, homosexuality, stem cell research, capital punishment, and the like. The news media calls these people “value voters.” I rather like the term, “issue voters.” When a Christian takes a position on one of these “hot-button” topics, he or she is then labeled a “liberal” or a “conservative.” Still, I think these are mislabels, referring to sociological issues and not to religious ones.

The problem with values voters is that have yet to emerged from Plato’s cave of assumptions and therefore, have not aligned their values with the point of view of morality which includes commitments to the dignity of all human beings, freedom of speech, and that moral values are values that are applied to everyone alike, and avoids ideas and behaviors that discriminate against others. Moral values are human values and they are Christian values, taught by Jesus himself and promoted by his most famous first century follower, the Apostle Paul.

Let’s discuss theology for just a moment. An orthodox position is that “Jesus is God,” or “belief in the Triune God is the sole path to salvation.” Nothing else matters to the fundamentalist except the belief that the Bible is the “literal Word of God.” I really don’t see how they can say this in light of the copyist-tradition in which the Bible was produced and the amount of editing that took place to rid itself of anything Gnostic or docetic. After all, some of the earliest Bibles that have been discovered carried books/letters in them that are not in today’s traditional New Testament. We have only part of the historical Christian message and some believe that is enough. Ignorance, I guess, is bliss.

A conservative position is somewhat different, but not so much different as to boot one out of the church – but that’s happening in Baptist and Presbyterian circles. The conservative position still focuses on salvation through the sacrificial life of Jesus Christ (an ancient totemic belief). The rest of scripture is up for interpretation and debate. This is not a literal position but one that recognizes the eternal truths of the scriptures without agreeing with the cultural and social contexts in which they were produced. The conservatives also understand the scientific approach to Biblical or “textual” criticism and recognize the changes in scripture over the centuries. They know that the Scriptures have meaning only within the context of real living, not in some abstract, cultural vacuum.

A liberal Christian is much different. The liberal is a pluralist who says that Christianity is only one route to God and that God has provided many paths to salvation, maybe through other religions and cults, and maybe outside anything that is recognized as “church” today. The pluralist says there are many paths, but only one God. Like Paul, there is an element of hope in this belief because of its spiritual and non-scientific nature. The liberal finds it difficult to believe that God would have created all of nature and humankind, but welcomes only a “select” few to eternal life. “What kind of God is this?” asks the liberal. The liberal maintains a universal approach to religion and does not claim that their conception of God is the only one or that the Christian path to God is the only path. They believe that God has provided a way for everyone to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The fundamentalist calls the liberal an atheist and the conservative calls the liberal an agnostic. Either way, the liberal is not invited to teach Sunday School at the local Christian church nor speak from the pulpit on layman’s Sunday. I have found a real liberal to be left of center of many southern Universalist Unitarians. Many of the UU’s like to think they are open-minded and liberal, but just scratch them a bit and you will find that much of it is smoke and mirrors.

Only those with a narrow view of God’s love and grace would exclude those from heaven who do not believe in their creeds and dogmas, rules and regulations. And who are they to exclude anyway? Who gave them the right to speak for God? For example, the Catholic Church traces its authority to speak for God back to a guy named Peter whom they assumed was commissioned by Jesus as the official spokesperson for Christianity. What about the other apostles; this is kind of strange isn’t it? Church legitimacy and religious meaning are not the same and never will be.

Perhaps under Constantine the fourth century Christians needed an “official” religion. They didn’t have the long tradition of the Hebrews and they didn’t have a book – the Torah and the rest of the Old Testament, the books of which were politically selected to screen off the early Christians and define whom they believed they are. What’s a church with out papal authority to do? Make it up for God’s sake and edit out of the New Testament books that were deemed “inappropriate.” Surprisingly, many believe that it’s the way things have always been and our so-called trained pulpiteers do not have the courage to teach them the truth.

Its no wonder the Asian world thinks we’re stupid and gullible – we are! Today the church and its many offshoots (denominations, etc.) are in turmoil for lack of attendance, liberal issues like female and gay rights, and even the idea that salvation may be a relative value and that it may be a commitment to a way of life rather than just saying “I believe” in a deathbed conversion. Boy, I hate that word “conversion.”

Spiritual the church is not. For the most part, members live in a black and white world of theology, dogma, creed, and official books. Even their hymns are a part of this propaganda machine as their have misrepresented history (especially the birth of Jesus) to indoctrinate the young. Where was all of this during the time of Jesus? It was in Judaism, a religion to which he belonged, but which kicked him out on the street. The new religion founded on his teaching had no dogmas, creeds, buildings, programs, or priestly hierarchy until it got involved in Roman politics. Jerry Falwell, the church could have used you then!

I have documented over 150 disputes within and among churches in America since the 1950s. Most of these disputes and controversies are institutional and hierarchical – you either believe or act the way we do or the way the “church” says to believe and act, or out you go. I wonder what Jesus would say to the modern day Pharisees among us? This material is in an unpublished manuscript entitled "Religious Issues and Controversies Since 1950."

I remain a simple Christian; that is, the message of the New Testament is an ethical message—just read the Sermon on the Mount (Plain). For me, salvation is a commitment to an ethical way of life, the one taught by Jesus, and not the result of saying a few magical words and getting touched by a preacher or priest or doused with water. For me, these ancient symbols have lost their meaning and at the same time have taken on a life of their on to define the church and its club-like practices. All clubs have rules and initiation rites and so does the church.

In my book An Ethic of Hope I write, "Faith is foundational and provides a pathway for our ethics, our step into eternity. Hope articulates faith in a life well lived and defines what it means to be a Christian as it generates the power of Christian ethics in our lives. Using this sense of hope—hope as promise, fulfillment, spiritual, and as a positive directive—we are able to understand how faith and ethics are inter-connected. Hope then is the Pauline metaphor for the life of kindness and compassion, of altruism, goodwill, understanding, and benevolence. Hope is faith actualized in a life of benevolence and compassion for others."

So you see, I’m a heretic, not in spirit or truth, but in the ways of the organized church. Today people believe more in their church and its practices than they do the teachings of the New Testament. Read what Jesus says about prayer in the Sermon on the Mount. If you take this seriously, you will never pray in public again and you will put your robes and other church-garnished stuff away. The fundamentalist only take parts of the Bible literally. They tend to ignore the most important pieces. That’s because with have become an issue-centered faith where spiritually has been shoved aside for more politically definable topic.

Enough said.