*But I Know Who I Follow

I was talking to a pastor friend of mine the other day who is feeling called to proclaim the politics of Jesus but serves a conservative congregation. This is an issue for many pastors, unfortunately, because Christianity in America is now so closely aligned with ultra-right-wing philosophies that have little or nothing to do with Jesus. For example, instead of protecting guns and gun owners, shouldn’t we be turning weapons into plowshares? Instead of allowing 1% of the population to hoard 99% of the resources, are we not supposed to be sharing—equitably—God’s abundance? I thought Jesus taught unconditional love and acceptance. I thought Jesus broke down ethnic barriers by reminding his students that Samaritans are people too.

I keep thinking people like me who are concerned about a more socially just and environmentally friendly economic system, the grotesque amount of power concentrated in the hands of a few, the health and well-being of all of us, especially immigrants and the poor—I keep insisting to my friend that we are the traditional Christians. Those Christians that are all over the news and in Congress? They’ve perverted Jesus’ message.

But compassion and social justice are not ideals that come to mind when most people are asked about “Christian values” these days. In fact, the values of Jesus—love, compassion, concern for the poor, the homeless, the immigrant, resistance against cruel and oppressive regimes—have been usurped by the Christian far-right and their message of exclusion and hate. This group is generally referred to as Evangelical, but that’s neither entirely accurate nor fair to all Evangelicals, many of whom are as disgusted with their denomination as I.

At any rate, I keep telling people that if they support things like systemic racism and closed borders, if they cheer at the policies of a government that locks children in cages and separates families seeking safety from the corrupt governments we created though our meddling, if their version of Christianity rejects any human being’s God-given right to dignity and to simply be who they are, I unabashedly proclaim: You are not a Christian.

I know, it’s nasty and judgmental of me, but the ideals shouted at us by the “Christian” Right have nothing to do with Jesus. I think it’s both appropriate and necessary to say so. As loudly as they. That’s what Jesus does, after all, when he points out, time after time, that his religious leadership is in bed with the Romans. I think he’d look at Christianity in America today and be like, “wait a second, what?”

Now, I know I am generalizing what Christians believe and creating a sort of straw man out of Christianity. I understand there are many Christians, like me, who are patently opposed to the cruel, un-Jesus like policies of the religious ultra-right and their entanglement with our government.

However, there are virtually zero Americans who distinguish between the Christians in Congress, who are a terrible example of Christianity, and Christians working all over the world helping people dig wells, build schools and hospitals, and learn about God’s unconditional love for all of us. Most people have not been taught that Christianity is an incredibly diverse religion and always has been. Hell, most Christians haven’t been taught about the historical diversity in their religion. So today, to the general population, all Christians are far-right, ultra-conservative, Bible-as-law, anti-abortion, anti-science, anti-education, anti-everything. I suppose a lot of Christians are considered anti-Christ (it’s easy to argue this is true, considering many Christians want immigrants deported, which is very, very anti-Christ).

The mini-epiphany that’s led me to reconsider my Christian standing is that, all that stuff the Christian right claims as “gospel truth”? Bodily resurrection, salvation, substitutionary atonement, believe in Jesus or go to hell—that is Christianity, and always has been.

That misperception alone might be enough for some of us to stop claiming we’re Christians and wrestle with a different identity. It’s even more tempting when we learn that the image of an angry, superstitious, narrow-minded zealot is precisely what Romans had in mind when they coined the term “Christian,” albeit in a different context.

The earliest followers of Jesus didn’t call themselves Christians. They didn’t believe in what are now the basic tenets of most Christian denominations (like Jesus dying for the sins of the world, because original sin wasn’t even a thing in Jesus’ day) at least, not in the same way we believe them. The Jesus they knew and heard stories about was a Jew teaching other Jews how to get back to the basics of their covenantal relationship with God, and that not through some dogmatic, labyrinthine complex of religious systems, bishops, cardinals, dogmas, creeds, and popes, but directly—you and God. Alone, chatting like the old friends you are. Is that Christianity? I don’t know. It’s certainly Jesus.

I have no problem calling Jesus my Guru, my Enlightened Master, my teacher, Rabbi, brother. I have no problem imagining the Christ as the universal, eternal, infinite Consciousness of God, our vehicle of creation in God’s being. What Jesus taught was initially much more important than Jesus’ death on the cross, which Christians are now obsessed with. The real power of Jesus is not in his death on the cross for insurrection, but what Jesus teaches us about how to experience God without the need for any intermediary priest, holy text, or emperor. Jesus teaches us that we naturally interact with God in such an intimate way that awareness of that relationship transforms us into a new kind of being—still human, but also undeniably in tune with the Conscious Cosmos, God, who is the fabric of all being.

This Oneness with God, Jesus shows, completely changes the way we view and live in the world. Oneness, sometimes referred to as Christ Consciousness, compels us to rethink and recreate our human systems of justice, economics, and other foundational social structures along the lines of unconditional acceptance, inclusiveness, repentance, and forgiveness. In other words, Jesus is about Love and the very different sort of world that Love creates. That’s capital ‘L,’ for God’s Love.

———

I chose a passage from James today because not only does James understand what Jesus was about, his is probably the oldest letter in the Second Testament (as with all biblical scholarship, there are arguments. I concur it’s the oldest.) James gives us a glimpse into what the people closest to Jesus were actually thinking before the Jewish Jesus movement got all Gentiled up by Rome.

James was Jesus’ brother and speaking to an audience that was still Jewish. His main concern is how disciples are to act while they await Jesus’ return—which at this point, they likely still expected in their lifetimes. In chapter 1, verses 26-27 of his essay (scholars have trouble classifying James because it’s sort of a letter, but not really. Again, there are arguments.) James writes:

If those who claim devotion to God don’t control what they say, they mislead themselves. Their devotion is worthless. True devotion, the kind that is pure and faultless before God the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their difficulties and to keep the world from contaminating us.

Right? I feel every bit of James’ sentiment. Especially his admonition to keep the world from contaminating us. It took a while for James to come around to his brother’s ideas, but James understands Jesus, who continually lashes out against the cruel and unloving world we’ve created.

James reminds us that Jesus teaches a way of life. The Jesus way is about loving our neighbors as ourselves and accomplishing that seemingly insurmountable task by first loving God with all our hearts, minds, bodies, and souls. That’s it. Loving God and loving our neighbor is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s the gospel he teaches, not the gospel written about him after he died. And as I’ve hopefully shown, there is a massive difference in thought and acceptable behavior between the two.

Most Christians embrace the gospel about Jesus, written 100 years after his death. A growing movement of us though, sometimes referred to as the “emergent church movement,” or “progressive Christians,” understand things differently. We follow Jesus’ teachings, stripping away the baggage of the Roman Empire, who interpreted everything about Jesus through the lens of Roman philosophy, Pax Romana, a peace kept through the threat of violence. It’s no wonder, then, that the crucifixion, one of the most violent acts one human can perpetrate against another, became the foundation for Roman Christianity instead of the unconditional and forgiving Love of God Jesus taught. The Romans saw the world differently, more violently, and demanded a violent act from God. That might be Christianity, but it has nothing to do with Jesus.

So, what are we, then? What do we call ourselves? Are we Christians because that ancient Roman labels still describes Christianity as well as it ever has: a group of overzealous, narrow-minded, anti-everything people who follow the doctrine and dogma of a system created to keep people out?  Or are we instead the peaceful, compassionate, God-experiencing love-givers Jesus claims we are born to be? Are we his disciples?

Maybe saying we’re Christian is less important than telling people—better yet showing people—that we’re disciples of Christ, students and followers of the way of Jesus that leads us to an alternative lifestyle, one that demands action against the Empire—whether ancient Rome or contemporary Capitalism.

I’m not sure we’re Christians, or that that word ever should have applied to followers of Jesus. But I have decided this: I am a disciple, and I am part of a movement for wholeness in a fragmented world. Anyone on the side of the poor, the immigrant, the impoverished, the disenfranchised; anyone who thinks it is our responsibility to create governments that provide social infrastructure for all human beings; we are disciples, if not particularly of Christ, then generally of love.

That’s it, I suppose. I’m a disciple of Love. You can brand me any religion you like, call me all the names you want, but for now, I’ll describe myself as a disciple of Christ, a student of Love. That’s love with a capital ‘L’ for God’s Love, unconditional.

Amen.

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