One of the fundamental messages, if not the fundamental message of Christ is that no human has the right or ability to judge the morality of any other human. Certainly humans can look at the actions of others and find those actions unconscionable and even fight against those actions. However, no one has the right to judge another’s morality. Even assuming that another shares your morality is a falsehood. Luke gives us the parable of the Good Samaritan in order, in part, to show how external limits can cripple us. A good friend of mine likes to talk about the drunken bum she once saw in a ditch in Boone. This bum was being ignored or laughed at by those in the street; even the ones helping him were suggesting that he shouldn’t have gotten into the shape he was in. However, she wondered, what if he were actually Christ? Wouldn’t he be exactly where he was supposed to be when he was supposed to be there. What would give her or anyone else the right to speak for Christ? What if, in fact, Christ would judge that bum as unworthy if he weren’t drinking himself silly in a ditch in Boone, and the bum knew that.
There is no doubt that most preachers have a strong sense of morality. However, much of that morality comes from outside themselves – from what they read, often, as if Christ would have superseded one set of scriptural texts which he didn’t write for another set which he didn’t write. Many of these preachers, for instance, will look at the words of Paul and, ignoring the fact that Paul himself says these words come only from him and his experience, will take those words as the word of the divine creator or of Christ. Such will lead preachers to make really stupid statements like “Homosexuals will burn in hell.”
Why is this a stupid statement? It’s supported in the Old Testament and the New, right? Of course it is. And that’s the problem. Those scriptures set external limits. They ignore the very fact of the gospels – that no one, not even his closest associates, ever understood what Christ was saying or doing. No preacher knows if a lesbian is going to burn in hell. For all any preacher knows today, Christ could love homosexuals best – could, in fact, only want to bring gay man with great hair to Heaven with him. Any other assumption by any preacher limits the power of Christ or god. Why would preachers seek to place such limits on Christ? The simple answer is because limits are easy. They are easy to preach and easy to understand. They allow the people on one side of the limits to look with disdain (or pity) at those people on the other side of the limits. The message of Christ is the opposite: only pity those who require such limits.
How would this play out in your actual life? First and foremost, it would mean that you realize that you don’t ever have the right to judge another’s morality. You can judge action, mental health, etc. But you can never question that any person may be closer to fulfilling the will of Christ than you are. Again, perhaps Christ loves gay people best. Won’t Fred Phelps be sad?
My comments don’t only go for homosexuality, though that is a hot-button issue. Any time you hear a preacher condemn any action as sin, you can immediately ignore what the preacher is saying. Claiming to know what is “sin” is claiming to know the mind of a god. That’s not knowledge of which a human is capable. So what should the preacher say instead? He should say that he, personally, with a lifetime of service to Christ behind him, sees such an action as wrong. Built into this statement is, primarily, the FACT that the preacher may be wrong. He can only ever be right for himself when he condemns an action, never can he speak for a god.
Never can he speak for a god, but like Christ, he can believe (and should, if he’s preaching about a god) that he gets his moral compass from a god. It is only when he demands that others adhere to the same moral compass that the preacher fails miserably at being a moral teacher.
I’m reminded here of a rebellious youth in Philip Roth’s “The Conversion of the Jews” yelling at his rabbi about the fact that the rabbi kept limiting God’s abilities: “Why can’t He make anything He wants to make!... You don’t know! You don’t know anything about God!” It is unfortunate that in order to make small-minded, hate-filled people feel better than others, many preachers will happily condemn Christ himself to hell. The end of Roth’s story has everyone yelling that he will “never hit anybody about God.” And there’s the key. No preacher knows the mind of the unknowable; not preacher has any better knowledge about what sin really is than anyone else. Claiming to know sin is prideful – something we might not want in our sinners.
Next: Huckleberry Finn and morality despite religion.
I do want readers to understand that understanding Christ as a living man is not to mean that he can't also be seen as a divine figure. When discussing existentialism, I see Christ as a man who, reared as a Jew, rejected the beliefs of his fellow Jews. Believing personally that he had a better idea about what the Jewish god wanted from humans, he abandoned his home, and contrary to society's normal values, set out to help others attain his level of enlightenment. In approximately four years, he preached to hundreds but made little difference in the overall Jewish belief system. Giving up on the missionary approach when he realized he wasn't reaching even those closest to himself, Christ opted for a suicide mission which he personally believed would open people's eyes.
ReplyDeleteOther aspects of Christ-the-Messiah are insignificant when it comes to the philosophy of existentialism. Obviously, his divinity and resurrection are extremely important to the religion of Christianity, however. Here may be the problem of discussing philosophy (which is about living). Note, however, that existentialism has no bearing on whether one believes in the divinity of Christ or on a faith in heaven or hell. Clearly Christ believed in those; he even used his personal beliefs as the basis for his rejection of the normal beliefs of his society. (And, importantly, his example provided the basis for others like Paul or Luke to also reject the norms of society.)
"Believing personally that he had a better idea about what the Jewish god wanted from humans,"
ReplyDeleteHere, you got close to his fundamental message, that he is the Jewish God.