The Daily Disciplines
Everything we do is practice for the next time. When we cease to practice, we lose our fluency, and memory becomes imperfect. Some things are practiced by default- when did you last consciously practice eating? Other things require conscious effort. My handwriting is slow, laborious and has lost its fluency. I type without thinking.
When we took our young children back out to the desert where we had lived, they were profoundly uncomfortable with the open spaces. We noticed our son was happier and less fractious whenever we went walking in the enclosed space of mountain gorges. We become used to, and are affected by our environment. Years before, leaving the desert, my wife and I were depressed, dislocated and disoriented by urban life. A day out walking in the hills begins to resurrect memories and instincts which have been lost to our consciousness.
As urban westerners we live in a profoundly artificial environment. It is possible, even easy, to avoid the outside world for days at a time! Enter the garage by an inside door from the house, drive out using the automatic door opener, drive to the underground car park, and take the internal lift up to work. Leave before it is properly light, and return home after dark. We live in a world which we Australians especially, think we control. In truth, we are irradiated with uncontrolled advertising and other stimulation, rarely alone enough to be in silence, and uncomfortable if we are. We live in a noisy, crowded and driven world, which is the anathema of all that our spiritual ancestors learned is necessary for health. We have stepped out of reality into an artificial place.
The spiritual disciplines are designed to bring us back into the real world from our artificial place. They create time, silence and space for us to re-engage with the depths of life. They patrol the corridors of the mind, as someone has said, re-minding us of what is really important. Religion without practice becomes merely an idea, caught in the currents of the ideas round about, without the anchor of reality.
Yoghurt with your Jesus, Sir?
I notice they have fat free yoghurt in our supermarket. Of course, to achieve this, they have to add other stuff to make it thicken and stay smooth like yoghurt. At what point does it cease to become yoghurt, and become something else?
Food industry lobbyists and politicians can meet and define what constitutes "yoghurt." We can envisage that true yoghurt will have at least a certain percentage of milk fats, and no more than a certain percentage of sugar.
Who owns the church, and will have authority to define just how much Jesus needs to be in the church for it to be Christian? Which Jesus will that be?
Last year John Petty wrote an article called What "progressive Christianity" must not do. He quotes Gretta Vosper saying: "The story about Jesus as the symbol of everything that Christianity is will fade away." John's response is "That is exactly the wrong way to go."
In his disagreement with Vosper, John gives a brief history of the development of the church which is worth reading for itself. Since the conversion of Constantine,
we have been subjected to heavily theologized, heavily pietized, heavily colonialized, and heavily lobotomized interpretations of scripture. Jesus was kicked upstairs, into an object to be worshipped, but not necessarily followed.
The progressive movement within Christianity, and the whole church, really does need to deal with this history. As John concludes, we
can throw out a lot of "churchified dogma," and you can certainly throw out--and should throw out--the various false Jesuses promoted by some. (One of the first to go should be the "mini-me" Jesus "who lives in my heart" and pats me on the head and tells me how swell I am. Ick.)
However,
we must keep the Jesus of the gospels, the "savior of the world," who contended against the corruption of the religious and social elite, and promoted healthy and compassionate living in the "beloved community" of humankind. "The story about Jesus as the symbol of everything that Christianity is" should not fade away. In fact, just the opposite. We ought to try it.
Agreed.
If John were writing a longer essay, he would no doubt acknowledge that the Jesus he has drawn for us, is also a contingent Jesus, dependent upon the sensibilities and sensitivities of our time. In the future, this Jesus, too, will be seen for what he is, a construction of our time. There is nothing wrong with this. April DeConick said of the Jesus of the Jesus Seminar,
I like that poet/rebel/healer fighter for peace and justice who sticks it to the man. He lives his integrity to the death and thus inspires change and hope. Did he exist? No. He's a construct that resonates with many including me.
At the time I suggested
What the Jesus Seminar has done for many is demolish an old Jesus, and bring to light a new one which resonates with our time. Seems to me that's the point of theologising generally. It goes wrong when we believe it.
John is talking about something else. We can't have Jesusless Christianity without Jesus, anymore than we can have yoghurt without milk. Maybe we can make a tasty, and even nutritious fruche, made from gelatine and fruit and six food enhancing chemicals, but it won't be yoghurt.
I like yoghurt, and waver between what my stipend dictates I can afford, and yoghurt of better quality. Some yoghurts are better than others. I know our time bestows a certain blindness upon us, but the Jesus John sketches out, seems pretty good quality for me. He is not a no name supermarket brand "mini-me" Jesus "who lives in my heart."
John's article is here.
James McGrath wrote a detailed response to Vosper's book here.
April DeConick's article is here.
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