Christianity's Challenge
In reading about Edward Gibbon for research for an article I'd like to publish, I ran across his most famous work on the decline of the Roman Empire and its greatest controversy, that of its clash with Christianity. A friend referred me to Gibbon once and I was dismissive of it simply because I tire of constantly defending Christians.However, on this account, as one of the two main critiques by Gibbon that I am reading secondhand, I think Gibbon and my friend are correct. Specifically his claim is that Christians focus so much on the afterlife that they lose their own care about the present. I think another way to structure that argument would be to call it a Christian selfishness about their own salvation -- that they become so focused with their relationship with God and their entrance into heaven that they forget about God existing in the people around them right now, here on Earth. They disgrace their faith by ignoring the needs of the present. Douglas Hyde, to a degree, talks about this phenomenon as it relates to Communist organizing in "Dedication and Leadership", that those who care about the world are so often scooped up into false doctrines because Christianity offers so few real ways to address and alleviate the problems of this world. It's too easy to become too focused on forever and not enough on the here and now.
I have felt this myself, watching priests and Bishops opine about the world and then do virtually nothing to help it. The excoriations are always upon the sheep, the loud lamentations of the shepherds that their flocks are not good enough. Moralizing Catholics, especially, are so prone to pick apart one's own faults and never tackle the most basic problems within themselves: apathy and inaction. Justifying their own wants and desires by claiming they want closeness to the Lord, they skirt the real issue which is that they want comfort from the pain of this world by the promise of peace in the next. It's not that they actually want communion with God because that will undoubtedly involve the pain of watching so many of His people suffer, of wanting to help His people but due to the constraints of creation and the love embedded within free will, unable to do so. God undoubtedly wants to help us, He wants to give us respite from our suffering, and yet the disciples he has provided on Earth are so preoccupied with their own pains that they forget to tend to that of others. Their desire to be in communion with their creator is a challenge, is their goal, it is their stated desire and never the byproduct of their virtuous life here as a human.
Are we good for ourselves, are we good for others, are we good because that's what we're told to do, or are we, hopefully, good because good acts are best, and what gives our creator glory, and what brings about our own fulfillment.
And, of course, this is far from a call for 'social justice' or of false 'equality' or redistribution, which are thievery masking as theology. No, I intend to say that our own actions, our individual choices, our daily decisions ought to be concerned less with our personal salvation and missing every crack while walking as to not offend a legalistic Lord, and rather on providing real relief, sincere compassion and opportunities for individuals to serve themselves and in so doing realize self-fulfillment and give glory to God through our acts and not our desires. The simple act of having children and raising them is the perfect realization of this, and is so crass when we in society who are so blessed fill our emotional voids with animals. Married couples living in the most prosperous nation in the history of man take their time with children and fill their fertile years with felines and canines instead of little ones. Blessed as a marriage in the church, given such opportunity, we turn to trivialities. Given a great library we read the comics, offered time-travel we would go to the first Britney Spears concert, offered genetic control over food and we make sweeter candy -- in our prosperity and given our opportunities we are almost unworthy of this world.
We justify ourselves not through our attention and focus, but from our discipline and obedience to serve despite the promises. Bravery is not the same as duty, heroism is not that which is in a job description. These traits we once admired were what we recognized as unique, commendations that we have watered down by proclaiming every janitor brave and every soldier a hero. Going out of our way to conflate Audie Murphy with Jessica Lynch, we have only degraded ourselves. We ought to act not as we expect will gain entry to heaven but in remarkable ways that exceeds the expectations. Our faith should motivate us all to be a martyr for the faith in the example of Murphy and not the quiet, calm Christian sheltered and isolated ticking off a checklist of to-dos in the pursuit of salvation. In many ways the promise of heaven seems a distraction to what we are called to do, would we serve the Lord so willfully, so powerfully and so well if we knew that there was no heaven and that we ought to be thankful enough for our simple creation, or would we fall into hedonism? What if our path to heaven depends on the degree to which we operate as though it wasn't there - that we act and serve not out of an expectation as to quid pro quo but out of a reverence, devotion and actual fealty to God.
-I am not good because of what is promised, I try to be good because it is what the father wants from me.
-I am not trying to be virtuous because of how wonderful the next life will be, but because I know that the father desires that act from me.
-I am not working to help the unborn because I expect choirs of babies to sing my praises to Peter to gain my entrance into heaven, but because to do otherwise is an affront to my creator.
-My greatest goal is to surprise my Lord through my actions, and to do them for Him and not for myself.
Labels: Catholicism, God, heaven, society, theology
posted by . @ 1:22 PM
0 Comments
Links to this post
