Christis, Christianity, Conscience, and Communism?
Part of what Christis is about is the desire to find relevance for Christianity in a world where it so often fails in that respect. Christis is attempting to speak to a wider audience than a holier-than-thou clique. To this extent, it is inherently political, involving itself in issues that affect us all.
It therefore seems apposite to explore the relationship between Christianity and the wider world. What pervades and informs this world can only be called politics.
It is a sad fact that the Christian response, if such a homogenous term can be used, to politics is most often one that supports those in a position of power. Only two weeks ago, Walter Schwarz, the Guardian’s religious correspondant reported the way Christianity was being used to prop up right wing regimes all over the world. As fast as liberation theologians can convince people that they are the vibrant new face of Christianity, some quasi-religious politico cuts them down with a clever passage from the Bible.
Passages from the Bible have always seemed flawed to me when they are quoted in my direction. After all, everything from predictions of the Third World War; the identity of the devil; the precise date of the revolution; justifications for execution, war, the holocaust, and Apartheid can be gleaned from its pages. It is a dangerous weapon. Got something to prove? There is always the Bible.
This proves rather problematic for the journalist who, no doubt wishes to prove something too. Perhaps the only thing to do is hang on to the essence of the Bible, place it in its historical context and hang on for dear life.
The Gospels do not take place in a secular society. The division between political and religious life which we are so keen to impose on First Century Palestine simply did not exist. There was a holistic approach in world outlook — social and spiritual combined.
Pharisees had temporal power. They were allowed to maintain the political influence they had achieved in return for not agreeing to fundamentally threaten the Roman Occupation. The decrees they passed were not mere pieces of paper, they had real influence over people’s lives.
It therefore follows that when Jesus challenged their authority, he was attacking the very authoratarian structures of the state, not just making a theological point. When he turned over the Temple tables he symbolically overthrew the Gold which the Pharisees appropriated from the people to pay themselves and placate Caesar.
Jesus’s statememt when the Pharisees challenged him concerning taxes is more problematic. Yet the first thing he says is “Whose head is on the coin?” Put yourself in the position of someone in the crowd. All of a sudden it is brought home to you that these pharisees represent a foreign power which is imposing itself on your country. Jesus has trapped them. When he advises people to pay God what is due God and Caesar what is due Caesar, he might well be making an implicit judgement about where Caesar stands in relation to God.
This episode may not be clear cut, but it only reinforces my earlier point about Biblical Interpretation being open to question.
In any case, Jesus encapsulated a whole culture of resistance which constantly faced death and was prepared to live in simple communities.
Any new form of hereticism either dies out or goes through a degree of instituionalisation. Christianity did the latter and the cult of opposition began to be diluted as it did so. The ruling classes found it easier to grab an institutinalized form of protest. More and more Christianity came to be a form of oppression, utilising powerful ideas like heaven and hell. Thus a split occurs between secular and religious, the results of which we see in 1989.
1989: in Britain we have seen an attempt to move the secular and religious closer together. In Mrs Thatcher’s address on the Good Samaritan she stated that Conservative’s would not “walk by on the other side of the road.” Polemicists would argue they have been true to their word and gone over to kick the lazy so and so’s head in.
The fact remains, however, that Mrs T. has attempted some sort of fusion in a perverse sort of way. She believes the point of the story is that the Samaritan can pay the bill. Thus she can provide the money for us to be good Samaritans while at the same time grinding down the poor. Somehow she reconciles the brutal competition of capitalism with its ability to create a trickle down theory that will eventually aid the poor.
Mrs T. has fundamentally misunderstood what Christianity is about. It’s essence is justice, not pathetic scraps of left over money from an expense accont euphemistically called help, but complete equality. So as Christianity continues to collaborate in the oppression of the poor, let us all ask ourselves a few questions about the “eye of the needle”, to quote a phrase.