Some Recent Thoughts on Religion

Here are some of the religious questions I have been wrestling with:

The Jewish messianic expectation that shapes how we encounter Jesus. In my opinion Jesus did invite those who would follow his way into a new kind of relationship with God. Jesus’ relationship with God was real, but because Jesus was a cultural human being existing within his Jewish milieu, the depth of his relationship with God led him to the only meaningful conclusion within his experiential framework. For Jesus to encounter God as he did, and to draw others into this relationship along with him, was to live out messiah-ship, to coin a phrase. But in casting Jesus as messiah outside of his time-bound Jewish cultural framework, the only framework in which it really makes sense, we are stuck with an image frozen in time, and we lose the, in my humble opinion, deeper significance of what Jesus accomplished, which is to draw us into deeper relationship with God. Jesus as messiah is, then, a cultural anachronism that is more hindrance than aid, as it fixes Jesus as something otherworldy, strange and supernatural when Jesus’ project and meaning is really about that closest reality of all, everyday waking life.

The meaning of the resurrection. Anyone engaged with Christianity has to come to terms with this. I prefer to leave it clouded in mystery as historical event. But the meaning to me is clear, as victory over suffering, evil, and their trump card, death. Whatever the events actually occurred that have come to be known as the resurrection, what was accomplished was that the relationship with God that had been opened by Jesus, Jesus’ continuing role as guide, our continuing opportunity to experience this relationship, was in no way defeated by the evil, suffering, and death suffered by Jesus. The resurrection symbolizes that our guide Jesus is with us still, that our relationship with God is intact in the face of ongoing evil, suffering, and death, and that to relate to God through our guide Jesus is to partake of this eternal life guaranteed by the resurrection. The actual literal events of the resurrection, if recorded on videotape, probably would appear to have little to do with this victory.

Here’s where the going gets choppy: The Christian claim that God acted decisively in human history through the life and resurrection of Jesus. Christianity gets into even more trouble than it does with its messiah-trip when it goes on its “final answer” trip. I am irredeemably from the one truth, many paths spiritual school. I get off the Christian bus whenever it makes any exclusive truth claims. Jesus’ truth was to draw us into relationship with God, not to proscribe what form that relationship must take. Unfortunately the Christian “God acting decisively…” claim falls far too easily into this dismal trap, and this Christian claim is the albatross wrapped around the faith’s neck, with appalling evangelism its foremost symptom. I don’t see how you separate Christianity as it is preached and practiced from this claim, and I don’t see a way forward for Christianity as a helpful religion without extracting the church from this claim. Like it or not, saying that God acted decisively through Jesus elevates the Christian’s spiritual life above others. Of course, the old all-religions-are-equal solution is equally unsatisfying, because if that is the case then why bother practicing any of them, it would seem to be little more important than picking your favorite flavor of ice cream. This problem is the question for religion in the 21st century. If we do not find a creative answer to it all that shall be left of religion by the end of the century will be warring fundamentalisms. This question haunts me every day.

The second coming. Sorry, Jesus is not coming back. Jesus, our guide to relationship with God, will rejoin us when we on earth rejoin him by following the path to God’s kingdom that he pointed us towards. Jesus lives eternally on this path, and we will meet him again together when we make it a good bit further down this path. A problem for Christianity is pushing the work of salvation work onto Jesus. I disagree that the world is broken, only to be saved by Jesus. Whatever is broken is only going to be fixed by us chickens. “Savior” imagery must give way to “guide” imagery if Christians are to contribute to that work. Jesus points the way, but we must walk it.