When I was young, entering the ministery was the last thing I would have predicted for myself. I had a chip on my shoulder toward religious superstition and sectarian bullying that I carry to this day. But, against my most cynical inclinations, I still believe there is hope for religion and for the church.
I remember as a child being mystified why some of the meanest people I knew identified as Christian. I could not understand how white Christians had defended slavery, or how some German Christians had confused our Christian faith with anti-Semitism.
It bothered me that Nazi Christians had sung some of the same hymns and recited some of the same creeds as my church back in Dallas. Do not the horrors of church history imply there is a crack in the foundation of European Christianity that needs repair?
I have spent much of my life wondering how so much of the church lost its way. Here are some of my best guesses:
MUCH OF CHRISTENDOM LOST ITS WAY BECAUSE IT BEGAN TO WORSHIP GOD AS POWER INSTEAD OF LOVE
How is it possible that so many members of a movement that began with “turn the other cheek” now embrace the AR-15 as a God given right? How did a movement that began with a call to serve the world get redefined as a call to impose Christianity on everyone else?
When God is worshipped as power, it implies there is a sacred pecking order. When Christianity spread into the Roman empire, many Christians lost Jesus’ message of universal liberation and focused on places in scripture that gave them power over others (“slaves, obey your masters,” “wives, obey your husbands,” et. al.) When the church worships a God of power and believes in righteousness as a sacred hierarchy, it is a matter of time before Christendom becomes infested with bullies.
MUCH OF CHRISTENDOM LOST ITS WAY WHEN IT BEGAN TO WORSHIP GOD AS A CAPRICIOUS INDIVIDUAL BEING INSTEAD OF AS A SYMBOL OF THE SOURCE OF OUR COMMON BEING
Jesus taught that God’s love is like the sun’s light – it falls on good and evil. He taught that we can look at the birds of the air and the lilies of the field to learn about God’s will.
When people believe in a temperamental God, it makes it very hard to be scientific. There is no point in studying physics if the laws of nature are routinely violated by disembodied spirits. Somehow, the church must learn to find the sacred as a deeper experience of our ordinary world, not as a supernatural world haunted by irrational spirits.
MUCH OF CHRISTENDOM LOST ITS WAY BECAUSE IT BEGAN TO WORSHIP GOD AS A MALE INSTEAD OF A LOVE THAT TRANSCENDS THE HUMAN CONDITION
Many clergy claim they are not being sexist by calling God “He.” They say the Hebrew word for God (Elohim) is male. Yes, and the word is also plural which somehow gets left out of the English translations. We must never forget that God is a symbol of the mystery beyond human understanding.
When we worship God as male, we lift up masculinity as if it were an essential trait of the sacred. The patriarchal church opposes women’s control over their own reproductive lives and opposes political justice for our LGBTQ neighbors, not because Jesus mentioned either subject, but because those issues are essential in protecting the irrational and unjust hierarchy of patriarchy.
MUCH OF CHRISTENDOM LOST ITS WAY BECAUSE IT BEGAN TO WORSHIP JESUS AS WHITE
When Christianity spread to Europe the simple teachings of Jesus were replaced by creeds and rituals that allowed the church to praise Jesus and follow Caesar. The church began to fill with stained glass images where Jesus looked less and less like a rabbi from the Middle East and more like a ski instructor from Sweden. Much of the church then defended slavery because they could not see Christ in People of Color.
MUCH OF CHRISTENDOM LOST ITS WAY BECAUSE IT BEGAN TO WORSHIP CHRISTIANITY ITSELF INSTEAD OF CHRISTLIKE LOVE
When some believers began to use the word “Christian” as a synonym for everything good, they implied that non-Christians lacked those same virtues. It was then easy for clergy like Martin Luther to assault the Jewish people as a threat to Christian civilization.
Likewise, it is easy for modern clergy to justify passing laws that impose our own Christian privilege onto the rest of the world. If the church is not to be a sheepskin disguise for narcissistic self-worshipping bullies then it must become an humble sacrificial vessel for a love that honors the entire human and animal family.