Paradise is Not Lost

From my reading of Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love for This World for Crucifixion and Empire by Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker, I am not quite ready to get the the death of Jesus yet and how focusing on it dramatically changed Christian faith. Another quote:

In the sixth century St. Apollinare Nuovo Church, at the edge of the old city (Ravenna, Italy), we found the earliest surviving life story of Jesus depicted in images. Near the ceiling on both sides of the basilica nave, thirteen rectangular mosaics marched from the chancel toward the main door. We examined each of the twenty-six panels closely. On the right wall near the chancel, an image of the last supper began the thirteen scenes of his Passion. At panel ten we encountered Simon of Cyrene carrying the cross for Jesus to Golgotha. We expected to see the Crucifixion on panel eleven. Instead, we were confronted by an angel who sat before the tomb. The apparition spoke to two women swaying forward like Gospel singers. We too leaned forward in astonishment and remembered what the angel had said: "I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here" (Matt. 28:5-6). The remaining panels showed the risen Christ visiting his followers in the stories of doubting Thomas and the road to Emmaus.

We found no crucifixion in any of Ravenna's early churches. The death of Jesus, it seemed, was not a key to meaning, not an image of devotion, not a ritual symbol of faith for the Christians who worshipped among the churches' glittering mosaics. The Christ they saw was the incarnate, risen Christ, the child of baptism, the healer of the sick, the teacher of his friends, and the one who defeated death and transfigured the world with the Spirit of life.

It seems that nowhere in early Christian art is there a focus on the death of Jesus. Not until the 10th century. This is one of these pieces of information that I find astonishing - that it is so and that I am just learning it now. Early church art focused on recreating paradise. When Christians walked into worship spaces they were reminded that with their baptisms they had re-entered paradise here and now and that their ethical living helped to make paradise a reality for themselves and others. Paradise was not lost. Their sin and the sin of the world did not so mar earthly life that they longed for the afterlife or even some kind of future eschatological moment. They were already living in a realized eschatology.

The afterlife was real of course, and full of saints. But even the saints were present in this life through icons and images. They were a part of this world's paradise made possible by the resurrection of Jesus and by those who lived resurrected lives.

One important insight to keep in mind here is that we are talking about a period in history where virtually everyone is illiterate. When we think of Christian history we tend to focus on the writings of early Christian leaders. As important as these writings are to get a sense of the emerging doctrinal decisions and the battles over who and what is orthodoxy, the vast majority of early Christians had their faith shaped by the art and liturgy of their worship spaces, which is why so much money was put into building beautiful spaces. And the predominant images found in those spaces were about living in paradise. Bread, wine, water, art, and the sharing of resources made paradise a reality.

I am also reminded of one helpful critique of liberal Christianity coming from the direction of the emergent folks. Too much of liberal Christianity is emotionally dry with its focus on word and intellect. There is more to life than being smart and right on the issues. We need to be engaged emotionally through music, poetry, and art and be reminded constantly that there is beauty in the world and that experiencing it is transformative in a way far deeper than any intellectual conversion experience. Which is not to say that engaging the mind cannot also be a thing of beauty - it is - but we want and need more. It seems the early Christians knew this.

On Being a Good Example

Yesterday I started reading Philip Gulley's If the Church Were Christian: Rediscovering the Values of Jesus. In his opening chapter he tells the story of being a young person in church hearing a preacher say "Some people will tell you Jesus is only an example for how we should live. But anyone can be an example."

Thirty years later Gulley says he knows better than ever that this isn't true. Living the kind of virtuous life that makes one a worthy example for others to follow is very difficult. To say that it somehow diminishes the story of Jesus if he is 'only' a moral example is to ignore the simple fact that we rarely encounter individuals who so embody the qualities associated with Godly virtue. In our lifetimes we are fortunate if we come under the influence of a few who come close.

If Jesus was one of these rare individuals - and I suspect he was - it is not hard to understand why he would have attracted both followers and enemies. Authentic individuals who actually live by the highest values attract company. We want to be in their presence. We want to learn from them. We want to be like them.

They also attract enemies because they have authentic power, not supernatural power or power obtained through violence, wealth or stealth, but the kind of power that comes naturally from becoming during their life-times a brighter and clearer light, the kind of light that stands in sharp contrast to and exposes the corruption and dishonesty and violence that so often are the tools of those who are in power.

It has been my experience that taking Jesus off the Only Son of God pedestal and making him fully human actually makes it much for difficult to be a follower. What we are being called to do as followers is not to believe in him but to live as he lived. Imagine what the world would be like if Christians simply lived more simply, or forswore the use of violence of any kind. The world as we know it today would truly be turned upside down. We would say the kingdom of God has come on earth.

Am I asking too much? The world is fallen and we need the grace of God to save us? Then we are looking for the easy way out - or up. Making Jesus into our ticket to heaven is cheap grace. Letting him be an uncommonly virtuous son of God who challenges the rest of us sons and daughters of God by word and example to live as he lived calls us to a lifetime of growth and transformation.

Oh, that Jesus would 'just' be an example that we spent our lifetimes emulating.

The Anchors of our Faith

James McGrath links to an interesting post by Ricky Carvel where Mr. Carvel talks about his struggle to reconcile his faith in God with his growing skepticism about whether the Bible actually "describes" that God. This prompts Jim to reflect on his own "life-transforming" experience of God that was more important in his faith formation than his belief in the Bible. This experiential "anchor" freed him to do critical study of the Bible and that critical study did not lead to the loss of faith. He wonders if those who resist critical study of the Bible do so because the Bible as the revelation of God is their anchor, more so than experience. Interesting question.

I never believed in the Bible as "the Word" of God. I was a sceptic about miracle stories and resurrections from the dead from childhood on. I also never had any kind of "saving relationship with Jesus Christ." In fact the two worst experiences of Christianity that I ever had growing up were going to a Billy Graham movie with a youth group and participating (by virtue of being in church on those Sundays) in a Lay Witness Renewal where the goal was to bring us to a saving relationship with Jesus and where I felt totally manipulated.

What "saved" me in church was the community made up of caring Sunday School teachers and youth group leaders and just lots of good people. With a very few exceptions I enjoyed church and was encouraged by pastors and other leaders who took an interest in me to raise the questions I was raising, and who embodied the way of Jesus in the way they lived their lives.

My "God" experiences growing up were mystical experiences in nature, in reading and thinking, and in relationships that I didn't think of as God experiences because I wasn't given the language to connect my experiences with God. They certainly were nothing like the God I heard talked about in church or read about in the Bible. It wasn't until I began reading about mystics and I learned that there was such a thing as an apophatic tradition within Christianity that I realized that my own spiritual experiences had a place in the big tent of historic Christianity. That helped keep my in the fold, so to speak, and eventually gave me a passion for reaching out to others who might have the same kind of non-traditional experiences.

What also helped was doing critical study of the Bible which had the seemingly curious effect of strengthening my faith. I learned that there wasn't just one understanding of God or one picture of Jesus in the Bible. The Bible itself was full of diversity and not only diversity but disagreement about Jesus and God and Truth. Furthermore the various authors weren't just channeling God or singing in harmony but were vigorously arguing a position with their contemporaries, and correcting the positions of those who came before. Learning a little church history and discovering the non-canonical gospels only confirmed this truth for me. There was never a golden age of unified belief and there has never been one correct picture of God, Jesus, or the Truth. Learning to read the Bible as an ongoing conversation or argument helped me re-engage the Bible as a beginning place for reflection about my faith.

Anyway, for me it wasn't believing in the Bible or having a life-transforming Jesus experience (language not used by Jim) that kept me within the fold of Christianity. It was community - not perfect community, but real community made up of imperfect but good-hearted people, which in its own way was a life-transforming anchor.

Leadership Conversations

Sometimes it takes 15 years to get it right.

We have never done much in the way of formal leadership training at Open Circle. We are a relatively small congregation and our structure has been pretty fluid through the years. Leaders have just stepped up and into many positions; for certain positions we have a congregational call process where we ask the congregation to identify the people who best represent the values of our community. Mostly we have been blessed with hard-working, gifted people who have stepped up to get the work done. But not too long ago we had a bad "match" that ended badly and we realized that it would be helpful to have a structure in place to have intentional conversations about leadership with current and prospective leaders in order to get to know prospective leaders and to better match gifts with needs.

Two books we found very helpful in this regard are Bruce Sanguin's The Emerging Church and Anna Christie's Evoking Change. Both talk about the importance of paying attention to the emotional and spiritual health of leaders and both have suggestions for how to better equip leaders.

So we are 5 weeks into a 7 week session on the spiritual and emotional foundations of leadership. It has been a great experience with the group we have. Each week we begin with a meditation; each meditation is led by a member of the group. That person is also responsible that week to share something of their creativity. We have had baking, crafts, writing and journaling thus far. Then there is the information part that includes: spiritual practice, meta-narratives of scripture, faith sharing, self-definition, boundaries, and staying connected across differences. We will close with a session on group dynamics. We have had great conversations about our roles as leaders at church, in families, at work. The benefit of this kind of gathering for getting to know leaders, learning from each other, and better matching gifts with needs is readily apparent.

Two weeks ago we had a very interesting session on faith sharing. Faith sharing is something we don't do much of in progressive churches. We know what we don't believe, and many of us are fairly uncomfortable in settings where people are sharing their faith. But it seems fairly important for leaders in a progressive church to have moved beyond "I don't believe this anymore" to be able to comfortably talk about what they do believe. So the group had a week to do their homework and everyone came with a written statement of faith. None of them sounded anything like the Nicene Creek - Thank God! We are learning something here - but each was well-thought out and articulated a positive statement of that person's faith. It was a great exercise.

It's never to late to learn from your mistakes and change the way you do things.

The Perfect Church

Posted today on a COB listserve:

It strikes me as reasonable that none of us can ever really know exactly what a church is like, until we enter it ourselves, until we become a part of it. And then, of course, that church is "like" what it is like, at least in part, because we have joined it!!

Its kind of the ecclesiastical "Uncertainty Principle." You cannot both know "the perfect church" and be a part of that church, yourself. By joining the church, we make it imperfect! All of us. . . . . .