It has been since December, and there has been significant movement in my life since then. Here are a few of those movements, briefly articulated as a way for me to step back into the blogosphere with these new convictions as a starting point of sorts.
1. Christian theology must be ethical. Jesus' teachings must be lived now, in this life, and they aren't some kind of unrealistic moral standard to prove we are all sinners. We are all sinners, but Jesus' teaching are still what we aspire towards today.
2. This (perhaps obvious to some) realization has led me to another conclusion: If I am to follow Jesus I must be against violence in all forms. As such, I'm a pacifist now. If I follow a God who preached love and forgiveness for enemies and neighbors alike, who taught us to turn the other cheek and that those who live by the sword die by the sword, who ultimately allowed himself to be brutally murdered while praying for his murderers' forgiveness, and who we call Prince of Peace, I am by necessity unable to justify taking the life of another.
3. But also to be true to this God I must recognize another important theme in God's self revelation through Christ. Namely, I cannot be passive, but must be active. To follow Christ is to do things: healing the sick, caring for the poor, setting captives free, and actively standing up against the violence of those who would do harm to others, whether those others are my friends or my enemies.
Those three are a helpful starting point, but it should be said that they are in no way an attempt at being comprehensive, as I've left out much that has remained largely the same. For instance, the resurrection went unmentioned, though that remains a central presupposition of mine, and in many ways I think I see these three things through resurrection eyes. I also left some things out that have changed, but get off my back; this is only a blog.
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3 comments:
Hooray! I am glad you are back to the blogosphere. Keep posting my friend.
Cabe,
“Significant movement” in your life … full of goodness.
About “getting back into the blogosphere:” I’ve only dipped toes in it myself, so that whole concept of transitioning back into it is curious to me. Now that I’ve taken my bonnet off and set my kerosene lantern down, I’m sure it won’t take long for me to “get” what it’s like having my life bound up with the online world.
About your first point: “…they aren’t some sort of realistic moral standard to prove we are all sinners.” I still wade through confusion on this because the idea still lies deep that Christianity is a mirror and somehow an equivalent of my sinfulness—I need a stronger word here-- my depravity/darkness; at first think, “godly ethics” means to-be-anti-me” as if the only way we can be for God and others is to be against ourselves. For so many like me, layers of spiritual abuse that have infiltrated and compromised our theology take a lot… of time, love & tenderness (oh my gosh, I just referenced a Michael Bolton song- somebody stop me) to detangle. That Christianity is not about or inclusive of self-contempt, for instance, is still a revelation to me and a bloomin’ miracle.
I find it wild that the ethics, or “active being,” of Christianity is not about moral Oympics, and yet it is in many ways, “unrealistic,” inverted and crazy and does end up proving, whether it is bent on doing so or not, that we desperately need the One to whom we belong.
True that. True that.
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