I found the perfect name for the "Christianity" practiced by the 'religious' 'Right' from a book by Flannery O’Connor (who was talking about something else entirely. Though I like all her work, I am pretty sure that she and I wouldn’t see eye to eye.) But 'the Church of Christ without Christ" perfectly describes the religion that the Right touts as “Christianity”---a sort of nominal Christianity, a religion that mandates the worship of Christ while disregarding his actual teaching.
I received a comment from Case Wagenvoord, who states:
Those on the right are Christanists who practice the doctrine of Christanism, a doctrine totally unrelated to the teachings of Christ. They should be forced to memorize Romans 8:38-39.
“Christianists.”---practitioners of the religion of Christ without Christ. You know, I don’t think he’d like them quite as much as they assume. He was constantly rebuking people for being hypocrites. And as he said to some of those tedious pharisees: “You are the sort who hold yourselves out to other people as righteous, but God knows what’s in your hearts, and the self-serving righteousness which people esteem, God despises.” (Luke 16: 15).
He also said, “Watch out for the scribes. They like to wear fine clothes, to be conspicuous when they mingle with the crowd, and receive deferential treatmentwhen at worship. In between bouts of prolonged praying, they'll go out and foreclose on a poor widow's house.….God will condemn them.”
He knew the fair market value of a good deed. When he saw the rich men donating large gifts to the treasury, and a poor widow giving her mite, he said, “These rich men have donated a small part of their wealth, but this poor widow has given all that she had. In God’s eyes, she has done more than all of them.”
I am mentioning this because I am so very worried these days about his reputation. I see how repelled non-Christians are by what they're hearing and seeing about "Christianity" as presented and practiced by the members of the Church of Christ without Christ. To secular humanists everywhere: Don’t listen to them! They are the contemporary equivalent of the sanctimonious self-satisfied pharisees and scribes he was constantly rebuking. Those people wanted him crucified then and they would want the same thing if he actually did reappear---because there is no way that the Jesus of the Gospels would be a Republican, drive an SUV, or be defending the gun laws.
The problem for the Left is that your basic unaffiliated non-Christian or mildly anti-Christian lefty can’t fight them on their own ground. For that you need me and others like me. I will carry the war straight into their own camp because I am disgusted and offended by the shame they bring on Christ’s name.
I’m not interested in pressing people who do not share my faith to adopt it. I don’t see how you can do that by persuasion and I know it can’t be done by force. But as I’ve said before, it’s so much easier to adopt the view that ‘redemption’ in the Christian sense says that if you believe, you are forgiven for everything, even if what you do and say directly contradicts the teachings of Christ, and that self-righteousness is the same as actual righteousness. It’s just easier to tell yourself that as long as you profess the right beliefs, your actions won’t count against you. I’m absolutely certain that’s not what he meant.
Christ didn’t shove his teachings down anyone’s throat. He talked to the people who wanted to hear them. “Let those who can hear me listen.” If he was challenged, he said what he thought, but he taught by example and persuasion; he didn’t try to make other people behave. And that is the Christian way to ‘witness’ for the Lord---not by yelling and waving your arms and speaking in gibberish nor yet by banding together in angry mobs organized for the purpose of passing laws designed to force other people to behave in a way that doesn't offend you.
Mocking the Right-eous for their religion isn’t going to help anything. Being mocked by nonbelievers is a Christian tradition, going straight back to the Crucifixion. Mocking them just makes them feel noble.
The only cure is to correct their message. It’s important to do that because if they occupy the field for too long, their version of Christianity will become the accepted version. Those of us who know better can't allow it. And we can't allow ourselves to be shamed into silence by fear of being associated with them by a superficially common faith. After all, we know what Christ would have had to say about that. "If you're ashamed of me, I'll be ashamed of you."
You need people who can attack them where they are vulnerable. If they quote scripture, we can quote scripture right back at them. If they give us St. Paul, we can counter with the teachings of Christ. If they cite Leviticus, we can counter with more of the teachings of Christ. If they give us Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Pat Robertson, the minister at their church, or George W. Bush, we give them Christ, the true Christ, again, some more.
And while I do not expect to persuade the founding members of the Church of Christ without Christ, some of the people who listen to them might actually begin to realize that the message they are hearing is not the message of the Gospels. I’m talking about those people who think that Christ said, “The Lord helps those who help themselves” (he didn’t). I'm talking about the ones who think that when he said “The poor you have with you always” he meant that since you can’t eradicate poverty, it was okay not to try to alleviate the sufferings of the poor (he didn’t); or who think that when he said “To those who have much, much shall be given; to those who have little, little shall be given”, he was prescribing tax breaks for the rich and the dismantling of social security (he wasn’t).
If persuaded to recognize the dissonance between their way of life and that recommended by Christ, a lot of people would doubtless prefer to continue practicing Christianism and to keep their SUV's, their tax shelters, and their handguns. But at least they'd have the moral high-ground cut right out from under their feet.
I realize that this whole discussion is in a way off topic, because just now the only real topic for any American is New Orleans. I can’t talk about New Orleans right now. But I am talking about some of the people who are talking about it, may of whom represent themselves as Christians.
And I see the disgust and contempt with which people I respect respond to the disgusting and contemptible views that are being expressed by some of them. I agree that disgust and contempt are entirely appropriate responses---to the people expressing them, and to the false Christianity or Christianism they profess, but not to Christianity itself modelled on the teachings of Christ.
Enjoyed your site VERY much! Much truth! I am persuaded that the master, Jesus of Nazereth would not only shun the 'right' but also the 'left' as well. "I am in the world, but not of the world." Both 'left' and 'right' are very much of the world. I can find no writings whatsoever where HE involved Himself in any form of man's (the world) politics. "Give onto Ceasar what is Ceasar's and give onto God what is God's." A clear cut case for seperation of church and state .... no matter which side is attempting to use the teachings of Christ for their political views. Let he who is spiritual .... understand. Thank you again.
Posted by: Steve Fugate | February 25, 2007 at 05:50 PM