God Without The Sacred
There’s this whole talk of global narratives and identity and what’s going to happen when when reach the zero point of society [some use the word ‘apocalypse’] – although, no, I don’t think we’re heading to some global dissolution of humanity – I do believe we’re coming to a particular time in history where crisis has turned to crises [economic, ecological and so on] – and the question of legacy must be now, take seriously – almost dogmatically. What is going to be the Christian legacy? That we somehow became even more splintered than our predecessors? – My claim is that we need less splintering, more community – but not more ‘Christian’ community – more Human community.
My insistence is much too radical for even the Jesus Seminar [I am in ongoing talks to be a fellow; I was invited to write an article then it was turned down because, and I quote: The questions you pose in your article might frustrate people]. It’s that Christianity had reached its zero-point in the era of Constantine – once it aligned itself with power and empire – its failure was too imminent. Now, Christian must become something less and more than itself – Secularism. [Read my article for the Jesus Seminar: Christianity and its Discontents – coming soon! – to find out more what I am implying]. Christianity as a sociological tool has a lot more value than Christianity as a religion, why? Let’s take a look at Paul quickly. He was someone who employed theology to respond to social and colloquial issues that rested upon social factors, not necessarily religious ones. He dealt with religious issues as if they had social implications. I think this is where the Church has intrinsically failed. Extrinsically, there is still hope.
Allow me to be narcissistic to prove me point here. The liberal left (herein, referring as those categorized in the Christian movement) seems to care mostly about absolving itself from conservative evangelical thought. That the wounds it desires to leave on history is one where the death of evangelicalism is nigh. Where somehow creative theological hermeneutics annihilate strict esoteric exegesis/eisegesis. But, honestly, theological terminology bores me. It doesn’t help anyone. Its like the act of masturbation, it only makes the user feel good about themselves and their usage of the object (in this case, theology). Take for example, my previous post about the the inexistence of women and its amount of share to some former posts, as well as this one (yes, I somehow think this might get more than 20 shares – mainly due to its content, surrounding WHAT subject – Theology!).
There are fellow bloggers on Patheos who share some quasi-new interpretations on a verse and they get 1,000s of shares, why? The progressive Christians haven’t changed from their former selves. The liberal left seems to become so liberal, it has turned back into the very monstrous entity it ran away from. I know this seems an unfair caricature to those who actually are actively involved in making the world a better place – which for me, implies not keeping the injustices (globally speaking) present -but working together to eradicate systematic violence, systems including the system. So, let me be prophetic here: The liberal left has failed (yes, I am including the Emergent Church/Movement/Discussion & Progressive Christianity — and the little cliques that have ensued within them – I understand any social clout I may have had might dwindle after writing this!).My prophecy is not one to come, but one that has already happened. The problem with blog posts like this is that most will read and not change a thing.
I spend a lot of time in other countries. I recently spent some time in Lahore, Pakistan speaking on: gender equality, religious cohesion, and social re-structuring. The sad thing is, western Christianity (not all bad) has gotten its claws there too. However, I respect these people so much – they will literally put their life on the line to save someone – even if they are not from the same religion. But, this post is not one of those useless messages of:” oh, you should feel guilty because we have it so good and they don’t” – its too Marxist for me (and I am a Communist!) – I think we have it the worst here. Because we think we have everything to lose. When in reality, we just have the commodity of identity to lose (which to a country immersed in the saturation of identity, is a lot to lose!). I truly think this is one of the major problems haunting the Christian legacy – identity. Capitalistic Christian identity. We think we need to preserve at the expense of a fragmented whole (Read Jacques Lacan).
We have gotten so caught up in our language (which includes theology), that we have limited any hope for a future or a legacy. We are leaving nothing in our wake. And maybe that’s what we want? – For me, I liken the Christian journey toward this radical emancipation of ourselves from theological enterprise and more social enterprise. One of my favorite books in the Torah is the book of Ruth, why? God never really shows up like s/he does in other books. Why? God is assumed. We don’t need to spend all of our energy trying to re-appropriate a patriarchal document into some form of latent postmodernism, but rather live the universal principles. Meaning: throw way your magnifying glasses and love other people. I don’t mean love other people like how Hollywood defines it or how most Christians do. But the way the secularist Paul speaks of it in the Greek: love as agape. Dying to one’s own ego. The very structure of identity that begets our comfort. The very thing that forces us to conform to the very things we believe; rather than becoming prisoners to our own belief, we should become prisoners to our neighbors and enemies (the word ‘prisoner’, I use as a metaphor).
We need a new type of community. Not a Christian one, not a Muslim one, not an Atheist one – a human one. Paul referred to the human community as ‘Christ’ – it said radical things like our new identity would be found in this new type of community once we divorce ourselves from the necessity of identity (once we resist the leftist allure of male/female, jew/greek, american/palestinian and etc.). I am not looking for utopia, I don’t think it exists. Heaven is for people who don’t want to live here. But fighting for something better than what we do have doesn’t have to be some form of idealism that engulfs all of those who have a different vision – this is what discourse is for. To me, that’s prayer – radical discourse. Changing the fabric of reality – isnt that what a materialist view of prayer is? Wanting to change all that we see?
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