Remember Hans Christian Andersen's story called "The Emperor's New Clothes"? If you are like me you might have forgotten the plot. Here is a very brief synopsis:
The story is about two weavers who promise an Emperor
a new suit of clothes that is invisible to those unfit for their
positions, stupid, or incompetent. When the Emperor parades before his
subjects in his new clothes, a child cries out, "But he isn't wearing
anything at all!"
I grew up in the evangelical tradition of the church. Southern Baptist, to be precise. Our church believed that you had to be 'born again' in order to be saved. I was taught that the world is divided into the Saved and the Lost. Those who were saved had been transformed by their new birth and lived differently than those who were unsaved.
As I grew older I began to question this doctrinal position. As I met and got to know people from other traditions, especially non-Christian traditions, and even those who had no religious belief, I found myself questioning more strongly the whole evangelical theory. You could certainly read the Bible and come away with the evangelical theology of salvation. But it didn't seem to be true to life.
Somewhere along the way of my faith journey I knew in my heart that the Emperor had no clothes on. The naked truth could not be dismissed. The so-called saved and lost were basically indistinguishable. In fact, many of the 'unsaved' people I knew were more like Christ than many of the 'saved' were.
Unfortunately the evangelical branch of the Church has trivialized the words of Jesus about being 'born again' (literally, being born 'from above'). There is such a thing as a spiritual birth. There are new beginnings. There are experiences of awakening to the world in brand new way, as if coming into the world for the first time. There is the expansion of one's consciousness that brings an awareness that we are not simply born into a small family or group, but into the family of humanity: we belong to the global household; or even broader--we are part of the whole organic universe; we are related to flowers and trees and bees and bats.
The 'us' and 'them' mentality that all fundamentalist religions preach is a narrow understanding of religion in general, and of the Biblical message in particular. No doubt you can find many passages in the Bible that assert a narrow viewpoint; the Bible is a diverse book. But you also find the broader, more inclusive viewpoint there too. And in the end the inclusive vision wins out.
Jesus sat down at table with 'bad' people, and the religious leaders criticized him. They were stuck in a separatist religious mode. What got Rabbi Jesus in trouble was his transcendence of the us-them paradigm. He understood his tradition that said, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is One." Jesus lived in the Oneness of God and the oneness of all people. He spit on the split and healed the brokenness. In doing so, he ended up as the broken bread offered to all.
There are no Saved and Lost. There are only the Loved. That's what true spirituality is all about: giving and receiving love. Jesus is my guru. He guides me in my journey of faith. He leads me to also learn from Buddha and the Tao and Socrates and Nietzsche.
There are many good, loving Christian people who identify themselves as 'born again.' But the vision they sit under is detrimental to all living things. We have to repent and give up the restricting doctrine of a divided humanity. Jesus and the Biblical message still make sense when read through the lens of inclusiveness. In fact, it makes more sense. The word 'evangelical' means having good news. But I've got the best news. Jesus saves by revealing our oneness with the God who is One. Hallelujah!
##
No comments:
Post a Comment