Taking Jesus off the Cross

During the spring of 1992 a business trip brought me to Italy including the island of Sardinia. While in its capital Cagliari, I attended Mass, one Sunday morning in one of its ancient Churches. Entering the church l encountered an enormous glass case holding the life size wax figure of Jesus moments after he was taken down from the cross. The life like representation of the corpse revealed all the victim’s terrible bloodied wounds.  For me it represented the gruesome display of the evil some men continue to bring upon human beings.

This troubled focus was again highlighted this Holy Week by a national Catholic Newspaper.  Describing Christ’s horrible sacrifice its author reveals in step by step detail the torture and pain endured by Jesus. By the time one finishes the article the reader will be convinced that the writer took a certain sadistic delight in describing the horrible scene. It reminded me of a gawking spectator who has just come across a terrible car accident. To describe the death of Jesus in this way, without the more important focus on his resurrection can only be described as dark pornography. Perhaps the author was just trying to outdo Mel Gibson.

But there now appears to be a better and new explanation why the Church has remained so focussed on the death rather than then resurrection of Christ. And it has been only recently revealed by two extraordinary authors by the names of Brock and Parker. Here follows a brief excerpt and explanation of their research.

During their first millennium, Christians filled their sanctuaries with images of Christ as a living presence in a vibrant world. He appears as a shepherd, a teacher, a healer, an enthroned god; he is an infant, a youth, and a bearded elder. But he is never dead. When he appears with the cross, he stands in front of it, serene, resurrected. The world around him is ablaze with beauty. These are images of paradise – paradise of this world, permeated and blessed by the presence of God.

But once Jesus perished, dying was virtually all he seemed able to do.

When Rita Brock and Rebecca Parker began travelling the Mediterranean world in search of art depicting the dead, crucified Jesus, they discovered something that traditional histories of Christianity and Christian art had underplayed or sought to explain away; it took Jesus Christ a thousand years to die.

In their book Saving Paradise – ‘How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire’ (2008) authors Brock and Parker reconstruct the idea that salvation is paradise in this world and in this life, and the offer a bold new theology for saving paradise. They ground justice and peace for humanity in love for the earth and open a new future for Christianity through a theology of redemptive beauty.

Saving Paradise offers a fascinating new lens on the history of Christianity, from its first centuries to the present day, and asks how its early vision of beauty evolved into one of torture. In tracing the changes in society and theology that marked the medieval emergence of images of Christ crucified,’Saving Paradise’ exposes the imperial strategies embedded in theologies of redemptive violence and sheds new light on Christianity’s turn to holy war. It reveals how the New World, established through Christian conquest and colonization, is haunted by the loss of a spiritual understanding of paradise here and now. According to the authors the subversion of the Christian message began with the ninth-century Holy Roman emperor Charlemagne, who instituted the death penalty for conquered people who refused to convert. After Charlemagne, killing, suffering and dying in the name of Christ began to represent the highest honour for Christians, the book maintains, adding that the attitude remains an undercurrent in some countries’ foreign policy.

Is it not time, especially during Holy Week, to take Jesus off the cross and allow him to finally address our and the Church’s many wounds so that we may rediscover a world alive with Christ's wonder and beauty?

New Evangelization

 

From the earliest days of his pontificate, Pope Benedict XVI has expressed his ardent desire to re-Christianize the West. To this end, he recently unveiled a new Vatican agency, the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelization. Headed by Italian Archbishop Rino Fisichella, the council is to present the Catholic faith anew to the world.

For many Christians the words ‘to Evangelise’ means “teach people about Jesus Christ as saviour.” This understanding is derived from the instructions issued by Jesus himself as contained in the Gospels. St. Luke (4:43) for example records Jesus saying: “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other cities also; for I was sent for this purpose”. Jesus subsequently conferred the same mandate upon his apostles: “Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole of creation” (Mark 16:15). Evangelization is not only the responsibility of the bishops and the clergy, but of “every disciple of Christ, according to his or her ability” (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, n. 17)

Jesus evangelized in more than word. He cured the sick, fed the hungry, raised the dead, and gave hope to the poor, however conversion to a particular faith carrying his name is not mentioned anywhere in the four Gospels. Since Jesus was a Jew it would have been logical that he would have insisted that his listeners adopt his Jewish tradition. Not so. The conversion that Jesus spoke about, time and time again, was a conversion of the heart! Evangelization for Jesus meant adopting a new way of life. Jesus was talking about living a life with others where we would share kingdom values such as compassion, understanding, forgiveness, peace, acceptance, etc. This is how Jesus proclaimed the kingdom of God, and said that we are already in the kingdom if we live according to these values. Furthermore, Jesus promised that we will live more completely in the kingdom after our death.

Almost from the beginning religious institutions sought to modify Evangelization to include the conversion to their particular branch of faith. Evangelization as interpreted by the early church meant that the convert was required to not only adopt the particular dogma and doctrine of the institution but also accept its traditions even if it meant completely denouncing their own culture and customs. Religious history is filled with many records of forced conversions as well as the destruction of many indigenous cultures which occurred well into the twentieth century. The pages of history are filled with stories of much cruelty and suffering at the hands of many well meaning missionaries. Surely, this was hardly the message of salvation that Jesus came to bring.

So let us once again return to the original meaning the Jesus clearly intended. Christian evangelization has nothing to do with a particular dogma or doctrine, Catholics, or Protestants. It has even less to do with church membership, its liturgy, rubrics, vestments, candles, or a hierarchy. It has everything to do with imitating the life of Jesus Christ and sharing God’s kingdom values here on earth.

Evangelism should really be a two way street. We enter the other’s world because we really believe we are enriched by the interaction and our horizons will be enlarged. We celebrate good and beauty where ever we find it. Jesus often found faith outside his religious tribe (Israel, God’s people) and praised it (Matthew 8:10; 15:28 to name a few instances). Actually, when we read the Gospels we often find Jesus saddened by the lack of faith among his own people and followers.

We don’t bring God to the other, but find God in the other.- Richard Rohr 

Have we Failed to Understand Jesus’ message?

On a recent blog I asked "has Christianity brought us the peace and compassion it promised?" If not, has Jesus' message somehow become distorted? For some of the answers to these questions Brian D. McLaren in his book 'The Secret Message of Jesus', provides a number of factors in our Christian history that may have contributed to our lack of understanding of Jesus' message. Elaborating on some of these interesting concepts presented in the closing chapters of McLaren's book readers are invited to reflect on these historical influences on our thinking.

Very early in church history the Christian faith took a fateful turn. It went from being a Jewish sect, committed to maintaining complete continuity with historic Judaism, to becoming a Gentile religion with persistent anti-Semitic tendencies.

The church's early separation from its Jewish roots was accomplished by a deep interest in Greek philosophy and its strong focus on abstract truths. This same focus is evident today; witness the hours spent by the church debating esoteric theological/philosophical issues compared to the trickle of attention paid to understanding and applying Jesus' kingdom ethics.

In the early fourth century the church quickly formed an alliance with the Roman Empire following the legalization of Christianity by Emperor Constantine. Consequently, the teachings of Jesus were now filtered by the church through the lens of a worldly political empire. This quite naturally tended to obscure the pastoral teachings of Jesus.

The alliance between church and empire brought about an endorsement for the use of violence in the service of the Kingdom of God. Suddenly the church/empire concluded that heretics could be justly tortured, and all pagans could be converted forcibly. Subsequently, Crusades were launched against non-Christians such as the Muslims. This same violent attitude introduced the Spanish Inquisition, witch-hunts, slavery and the lack of direct opposition to the Holocaust in the last century. These terrifying and inhuman actions were frequently undertaken in the name of Christianity in total contradiction to the teachings of Jesus.

Following the middle Ages, the reformation brought new Protestant alliances with the secular state as was already the case with the Catholic Church. Many European countries established overseas colonies at the expense of its native population, often with strong support of the church.

Until the twentieth century the church's conventional understanding of Christianity remained unchallenged. Until that time, it clearly inhibited our understanding of Jesus' kingdom and did not encourage a re-thinking. However, with the discovery of new documents from the ancient world, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls it became evident that Christianity needed to re-examine Jesus' message for all humankind.

Until recent times, the Christian church did not engage in any serious self-examination. In many cases apologies for many of their appalling sanctions came only centuries or decades after the event. With the growing theological acceptance of salvation in the 'here and now' Christianity will perhaps be more readily prepared to accept their role in these horrendous acts. As Christians we must be prepared to learn from our past errors (sins) before we can understand what it means to live in God's kingdom. At the same time we must recognize that 'given the right circumstances' we are all just as capable of taking part in these different forms of injustice, acts of violence, racism, sexual abuse and environmental degradation, etc., etc.,

Today we are slowly learning to reject the various forms of superstition and magic prevalent in many periods of Christian history. Most profound is our understanding of the Ego throughout history. Increasingly theologians are now beginning to identify the Ego with Satan or the devil. Perhaps for the first time in history we are beginning to realize that we need to embrace our dark nature (False-Self) with our True-Self, which is non-other than or God given self. Failure to understand our Ego has seriously clouded our understanding of many of Jesus' parables and the concept of God's inclusive Kingdom. It is nearly impossible to understand Jesus' parables otherwise.

Christianity's continued focus on the past rather than the present remains an obstacle in embracing ecumenism and relevance to its followers. Church attendance continues to drop in staggering numbers despite a strong belief in God and the desire for peace and understanding – the very message Jesus brought more than two thousand years ago.