Tag Archives: Christianity

Social Justice and the Broken Body of Christ

Posted on by under Culture
The Crucifixion by Aaron Douglas and The Deposition of Christ by Caravaggio

The Crucifixion by Aaron Douglas and The Deposition of Christ by Caravaggio

This post hinges largely on a basic premise that I firmly believe, and one that grieves me because I firmly believe it:

American Christians are not doing enough to promote social justice.

Exploring this premise unfolds in numerous directions. There are many in which Christians fail, there are a number of reasons (valid and faulty) that Christian give for being less involved, there are plenty of ways in which Christians can become more involved, and there is a plethora of indictments that might be brought against American Christianity for their shortcomings in this area.

It would be impractical to try to touch on all of this in a mere blog post, so let’s turn our attention to one incongruity that strikes me as inconsistent and perhaps even hypocritical within the zeitgeist of American Christianity.

Christian doctrine must, like all religions or other concepts of spirituality, reconcile our distinctly physical existence with what is, as far as we can tell, non-physical. How is it that people “go” to heaven? How does God “hear” prayers? How is one “filled” with the Holy Spirit? These are part of a set of very complex philosophical questions that people have tried to answer for thousands of years.

Oftentimes, Christians will make a distinction between the physical and the non-physical or spiritual, speaking of the ways in which their flesh is at war with their spirit, or the way in which their brain is different from their mind or the way in which a spirit or soul exists within their physical frame.  Christian must consider these distinction when judging how they handle themselves, as well as how they interact with their fellow human beings. This brings Christians to what is really a false dichotomy: “Do I serve my neighbor’s physical needs or their spiritual needs?” Is a Christian to feed poor people or give them Bibles? Should they become a doctor or should they become a pastor?

Even as I write this I have to fight the urge to run off in a dozen different directions with this, but I will do my best to focus this discussion on the single most important picture of the relationships between physical and non-physical: the Nazarene named Jesus. Just as Jesus’s place in the Trinity is a logically accepted mystery, so too is the union of Jesus’s spirit with an earthly body a tricky doctrine of nearly unsurpassed significance. In short: the second person of the Trinity, usually referred to as “the Son,” existed at the beginning, long before Jesus ever did. But the Son took on a human body, and thus the spiritual Son and the physical man were fused together in what is known as the hypostatic union. In order for the Gospel to work, Jesus must be a god-man; he must be 100% divine and 100% human.

Christians fail to value social justice when their view of their neighbor’s physicality does not match their fixation on the body of Jesus. Too often, Christians look at issues of social justice and fail to see where there might be an opportunity to evangelize or explicitly present the Gospel or in some way tend to the spiritual side of their neighbors, and as a result they consider it not worth their time. Supposedly, they will substitute this with some sort of direct spiritual action, but I find that this is not the case and usually this spiritual action amounts to posting a spiritual message on social media. Christians worry about wasting their time and effort pouring themselves into an issue of social justice, all the while living a life that they justify with words like “relevancy,” confining their spiritual work to the occasional conversation with a friend or coworker, furthering the false dichotomies of sacred and secular.

Because it is an issue that I am invested in, I will use race and racism as my primary example in this post, starting now: too many Christians, even those who acknowledge that racism is a big deal, are slow to act against it because they don’t think that the Gospel can be advanced in battling institutional racism. If they do not see a way that fighting racism can be a direct avenue to sharing the Gospel, then they see mistreatment of people based on appearance as something not worth devoting direct attention to. The “physical” need (job discrimination, harmful stereotypes, economic disadvantages, police brutality, justice system bias) is seen as being secondary to the “spiritual” need (accepting Jesus as savior, becoming a Christian), so much so that the physical need is just ignored.

Meanwhile, American Christianity is obsessed with the carnality of Jesus. Most Christians have, at some time, been walked through the gory details of Jesus’s death, emphasizing the physical pain that he went through in order to be the atonement for sin. The bloody spectacle of The Passion of the Christ brought in hundreds of millions of dollars, as people sat through extended sequences depicting the destruction of Jesus’s body, including the horrific flogging sequence that is based on one sentence in the Gospel of John. The physical details of Jesus’s death are the most obvious example of Christianity’s obsession with the body of the Christ, but it is hardly contained to this. Communion reveals a fixation on the body that ranges from the most mild interpretation (that the bread and wine merely represent blood and body) to the rather mind-blowing concept of transubstantiation (the bread and wine literally become the blood and body of Jesus). Some Christians muse on the sexuality of Jesus, and most everyone can’t help but wonder about some details that are fairly trivial, such as whether or not Jesus cried when he was a baby. The bottomline is that Christians care a lot about the human part of the god-man Jesus.

What makes this fixation on the physicality of Jesus that much more inconsistent is the way in which many Christians do not emphasize the deity and thus the spirituality of Jesus. Sure, any Christian can tell you that Jesus is God, but what does that really mean? It means, among many important things, that Jesus wasn’t just afraid of being hung on a cross – rather, what had Jesus crying out for help (and possibly sweating blood) the night before his death was his impending separation from the first person of the Trinity, commonly called the Father. Think about this – the Son had been with the Father for eternity. The Son had been incomparably happy, because he was with the Father, forever. But, in order to take the weight of sin, the Son, now incorporated in Jesus, would be separated from the Father. If you believe in that theology (which Christians should), then that prospect is way (way) scarier than even the horrific fate of crucifixion.

If you read the New Testament, you will find a startling dearth of references to the physicality of Jesus, with the exception of references to the fact that a spiritual being took on an earthly form. The authors of the New Testament are much more concerned with the spiritual implications of the life and death of Jesus the Nazarene. However, in regards to fellow human beings, the story of Jesus is flanked by ministries inspired by Jesus that emphasize tending to physical needs. In Lukes’s account of John the Baptist, the Baptizer responds to the three questions of “What shall we do?” with three directions of physicality: “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.”…. “Collect no more than you are authorized to do.”….  “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.” In his letter to the Galatians, Paul writes that the Christian leaders in Jerusalem made only one special request as he set out on his ministry to the Gentiles: “Only, they asked us to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do.” The book of James says that “religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” It appears, to me at least, that the authors of the New Testament were very concerned with the physical needs of the world, but in regards to Jesus they were less interested in the violent destruction of his body and more interested in his spirituality.

And yet, so many Christians go on emphasizing the humanness of Jesus. This is not to say that they ignore the spirituality of Jesus, but it certainly receives less emphasis, and it is vastly disproportionate in comparison to the way in which so many Christians regard the way they should care for their neighbor.

So now that I’ve raked the muck, let me see if I can propose a fix to what I hope you see is an inconsistent, even hypocritical mindset for many Christians.

The first thing is to consider how you balance your vision of Jesus as being both physical and spiritual. But I can’t really say what that balance should look like.

Because perhaps there’s a good reason for the particularly carnal vision of Jesus, and maybe there is a good reason for the tendency to see Jesus as a human first and God second. In Jesus, Christians have the full revelation of God. By taking on the life of a human, the separation between God and humanity was bridged. But it was only through the physical actions of Jesus that this good news might be understood, as Paul repeatedly refers to Jesus as the answer to a mystery hidden for ages. It was because the Son stepped into a human life – a human life that involved friends and family and laughing and weeping and anger and food and drink – that humanity might see the good news delivered to them through Jesus’s call for love and peace in a ministry aimed to be for humanity’s good and for the Father’s glory. Indeed, Jesus’s humanity is crucial to appreciating his life.

But this emphasis on the physicality of Jesus should extend to the rest of his life, rather than just on his death and resurrection.

Consider the story in which Jesus heals the paralytic. The first thing Jesus tells the man is that is sins are forgiven, but of course the crowds cannot comprehend this. They need some sort of proof from Jesus, otherwise his ludicrous claim is blasphemy. What does Jesus do? He gives a physical sign and heals the man so that he may walk.

Of course Jesus came to save the souls of sinners from death, but he also said, “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.” (Kendrick Lamar knows what I’m talking about).

Which is all to say: Christians can talk all they want about Jesus’s love as they tend to the spiritual needs of their neighbor, but sooner or later they had better prove it.

And, if you can’t see the love in social justice, then you are probably thinking about various causes with a skewed vision. What the news says about Black Lives Matter protests is going to set you against it. What the old guys at your workplace say about feminism is probably really misinformed. Chances are if you live in an affluent community you have no idea what perpetuates poverty. The reality is that American society is progressive enough that average people have ample opportunities to invest themselves in improving the physical well-being of fellow human beings. And that is, from a Christian perspective, a way to tend to their spiritual needs. Remember: the dichotomy is false.

Why do Christians remind themselves of the broken body of Jesus hanging on a cursed tree?

Could it be for the same reason that we should remind ourselves of the smoldering body of Bobo hanging from an apple tree?

I ardently believe that Christians are called to tend to the physical needs of the world, even when there is no explicit opportunity to share the Gospel – I think the life of Jesus and the rest of the Bible makes that quite clear. And I believe there are tremendous opportunities for Christians from all walks of life to engage in matters of social justice and improve the physical well-being of their neighbor. And, through that, Christians can “do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly” while also providing opportunities to share not only the message of the Gospel, but the love of Christ in a way that is as tangible as a crucifix.

If Christians can come to value the body of their neighbor like they value the body of Christ, just imagine what a world we might live in…

Forth now, and fear no darkness.

Soli Deo Gloria

-Peter

Extra Credit

 

 

Melekh HaKavod

Posted on by under Culture, General Articles

And do you trust your king?

autumn bruh

Even if you find this post ponderous, nerdy, esoteric, or gender non-inclusive, at least you get to see this dope picture, right?

Kings hold such a grip on our imagination and our history books that we have stopped wondering why they’re so important.

I’m not in the business of telling people what they already know, but forgive this reminder: kings are everywhere. Our movies, our books, our card games, our expressions, our artwork – no position in human history is so famous, so recognizable, so revered as that of king. And because of this saturation of kings, ranging from Babar to Elvis, we don’t stop to ask ourselves why we care so much about kings, and what our idea of kings reveals to us about ourselves.

Despite the astounding number of bad kings in world history, and even considering the number of times a king has been the bad guy in works of fiction, the human imagination remains enraptured by the good and noble king.

The groundwork for these concepts of kingliness might be laid out by examining the glorious amalgamation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit and Peter Jackson’s screen adaptations of these works. These stories contain a number of kings, of which I believe Aragorn, Thorin, and Theoden to be the most important.

One of the biggest storylines in The Lord of the Rings that gets set aside when people oversimplify the story to “short guys who smoke and eat a lot go on a walk to chuck a ring into a volcano” is Aragorn’s journey to claim his right as the king of Gondor. This oversight is a little silly, considering the fact one of the books is entitled The Return of the King. But, nonetheless, the importance of Aragorn becoming a king, resuming a bloodline long bereft of lordship, extends beyond his importance of being a hero who takes care of his friends. Hunting orcs with Legolas and Gimli is one thing, but taking his place in a great line of kings is on another level entirely. At first, Aragorn’s place in the story might appear as simple as a good guy with a swift sword, but a more careful reading and viewing makes it pretty clear that it really matters that he is the heir to the throne. That’s part of what makes Boromir’s oath to him so powerful, it’s why the men in the mountain follow him to Minas Tirith, and it’s why his march to the Black Gate and his pre-battle speech are so meaningful.

It’s a similar story for Thorin, King Under the Mountain. Jackson subtly wove Aragorn’s lordship into the first trilogy, but in the Hobbit films he pulled no punches in emphasizing the potential monarchy of Thorin, heir to the throne of an exiled people. In An Unexpected Journey, when Balin recounts the Battle of Azanulbizar, and ends by saying of Thorin, “There is one I could follow. There is one I could call king,” it matters that Balin endorses Thorin to be a king, specifically. Like Aragorn, this is not about being a general, or a captain, or just a really cool guy. Generals and captains have their own legacy and lore, but it isn’t the same as saying king. As a result, Balin’s line is one of the movie’s first nods at what will become perhaps the defining moment of that trilogy – Thorin’s charge out of the mountain in The Battle of the Five Armies. Look, if Thorin leading his company out of the mountain, Dain yelling “To the king! To the king!” and Gandalf telling Bilbo “They are rallying to the king,” doesn’t evoke some sort of emotion in you, I’m sorry to hear that you’re missing out. It’s moments like that that make me believe in the Stendhal Syndrome. And, again, it matters that Thorin is a king – not just a really cool guy. It’s why a charge led by 13 dwarves turns the tide of a battle – it’s a charge led by the king. And, if you think that scene is a pandering Hollywood/Peter Jackson-big-screen-fanboy moment, think again. Just what do you think Tolkien had in mind when he wrote:

Suddenly there was a great shout, and from the Gate came a trumpet call. They had forgotten Thorin! Part of the wall, moved by levers, fell outward with a crash into the pool. Out leapt the King under the Mountain, and his companions followed him. Hood and cloak were gone; they were in shining armour, and red light leapt from their eyes. In the gloom the great dwarf gleamed like gold in a dying fire. Rocks were buried down from on high by the goblins above; but they held on, leapt down to the falls’ foot, and rushed forward to battle. Wolf and rider fell or fled before them. Thorin wielded his axe with mighty strokes, and nothing seemed to harm him.
“To me! To me! Elves and Men! To me! O my kinsfolk!” he cried, and his voice shook like a horn in the valley. Down, heedless of order, rushed all the dwarves of Dain to his help. Down too came many of the Lake-men, for Bard could not restrain them; and out upon the other side came many of the spearmen of the elves. Once again the goblins were stricken in the valley; and they were piled in heaps till Dale was dark and hideous with their corpses.

That scene is not the unfaithful work of Jackson (though there are plenty such scenes). And it works precisely because Thorin has completed his journey to take up a long-lost throne.

To draw one more example from Tolkien, King Theoden may actually be the most impressive of all. When we first meet Theoden, he is a weak and failing old man, but he is a king nonetheless. But even after being freed from the curse on his mind, his aging mind and body must grapple with tough decisions that will directly affect the fate of his people. And it’s a bleak situation, but Theoden’s people trust him –

“Who am I, Gamling?”

“You are our king, sire.”

“And do you trust your king?”

“Your men, my lord, will follow you to whatever end.”

And in the events that follow in Theoden’s story, he validates this trust in moments that call for unparalleled valor, first leading them for wrath and ruin at Helm’s Deep and then playing the central role in my personal favorite moment of the third movie – the charge of the Rohirrim at the Battle of Pelennor Fields. Again, these moments are not all total figments of Jackson’s imagination – read the books. And I think it’s because Theoden is such a heroic king that his character has been one that has kept a special place in my love of Tolkien’s works. It matters that an aging man, with everything stacked against him, and a bunch of people counting on him, steps up when it matters and leads his people with courage in a way that only a born king could. It’s why Eomer says “To the king!” when they charge into the valley at Helm’s Deep, not “Charge!” and it’s why I end my articles with “Forth now, and fear no darkness!”

But this extends well beyond the world of Tolkien. Other creative minds have utilized the power of a king bravely leading his men into battle, inspiring them to do more than they ever thought possible. We are not far removed from St. Crispin’s Day, on which Henry V rallies his men with one of Shakespeare’s most famous speeches (“We few, we happy few…”), coming in the same play as “Once more into the breach.” It matters that the freaking King of England is saying those things to his men, rather than some other military leader. Even in a movie like 300, you can’t tell me it doesn’t matter at least a little that Leonidas is the King of Sparta, not just another badass. It’s one of the (many) reasons that Themistokles is not nearly as compelling in Rise of an Empire as Leonidas is in the first movie.

But there’s even enough aura around the idea of a king that the king might not even have to demonstrate this martial skill in order to inspire.

For example, the character of King Baldwin IV in Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven, portrayed by Edward Norton, strikes a particularly kingly figure in a surprising fashion. It’s implied that Baldwin has had great victories before, but by the time of the film’s events, he is a masked leper that might seem more suited to the chess board than to the battlefield. But yet his character still commands respect, and there’s a very clear sense in that movie of how important his role as king is. So much so that it’s pretty freaking boss when he gives the order to assemble the army and he leads the men out to meet Saladin. So much so that Baldwin’s character has a few YouTube tributes – pretty remarkable considering he’s a fairly minor character in a movie widely regarded as a bust.

And, as Henry, Leonidas, and Baldwin show, these notions don’t just come from the minds of fanciful writers. History continues to tell the story of great kings and their heroic deeds.

So, to recap before we take this to the next level:

  1. Kings are ubiquitous in our imagination and have a very potent effect on our mind and emotions
  2. The inspiring traits of a good king are particular to kings; kings are inspiring in different ways than captains, generals, etc.
  3. Part of the reason for this is that king’s are “meant” to be kings – not just anyone can put on a crown and fulfill the role of monarch
  4. Courageously leading men into battle is perhaps a king’s finest hour
  5. But even just a strong presence can inspire

Now what I’m about to do will upset you if you’re one of those people who can look Dostoevsky in the face and say “Your overt use of Christianity to resolve Crime and Punishment undermines the rest of your genius.”

I think we were made to be this way. I think our admiration of the great and noble king tells us something about ourselves that points us to the message of the King of Kings.

From a literary and historical standpoint, the Bible is very concerned with kings, both good and bad. The lives of a number of kings are well-documented, including their heroism in war. The Bible’s authors write of how King ____ went out to face King _____, emphasizing the ruler’s place as commander in chief. When they became discontented with judges and prophets, the Israelites stopped trusting in God’s plan and demanded that the prophet Samuel anoint a king, a move that changed the course of Israel’s history.

Despite Israel’s disobedience, the authors of the Bible describe ways in which Yahweh guided kings to great victories, and gifted some of these men with the ability to inspire greatness in others. However, kings ultimately fell short – some had famous vices and sins, some were flat out bad men, and in the end Israel and Judah were conquered by foreign rulers. But, as Biblical prophecy and history shows us, ruler after ruler eventually meets their end. The Babylonian Empire gave way to the Persians, the Persians to the Greeks, the Greeks to the Romans, and so on and so forth.

Yet the Jewish people still expected the Messiah to come in the form of a great military monarch, one who would ride into Jerusalem on a mighty warhorse. Instead, they got a humble Jewish carpenter, who walked about Judea preaching a message of love and forgiveness. They got a savior who rode to the sight of his greatest victory on a donkey. Instead of a crown of gold and jewels, he wore a crown of thorns.

But he is no less a king. In fact, the Bible calls Jesus the King of Kings. For he, like the kings we so admire, fills a role that no one else could, he takes on the toughest of challenges and the heaviest of burdens, he conquers the most dangerous of enemies, he speaks words of inspiration and calls us to be courageous and have faith, in his name is power, great deeds are done in love for him, and, as a nice added bonus, he’s part of a long lost line of kings.

So what do I think we learn from Tolkien, Jackson, Scott, Snyder, Shakespeare, Branagh, Caesar, the chroniclers, the Gospel-writers, the Apostle, Lewis, Mallory, Charlemagne, and Jesus of Nazareth?

We long for a king. We are made for a king.

As much as we yearn to be free and to celebrate our individualism, I think there is an equally powerful force in the human spirit to be ruled. Not to be subjugated, or oppressed, or captivated, or ordered about by a tyrant – indeed, I think the bad king is one of our most potent fears – but to be led by someone that is greater than we could aspire to be. To be guided by one who assuredly leads the way. To serve someone worthy of honor and glory and praise.

We might go to the ends of the earth for an inspirational leader like Jeanne d’Arc or Richard Winters, but we would try to go even further for a leader born to wear the king’s crown.

But, just as the people of faith in Hebrews 11 were longing for “a better country, that is, a heavenly one,” we are longing for a better ruler (that is, a heavenly one). This impression upon our souls leaves us with a recognition of great earthly rulers, and these men instill in us a version of the inspiration received from Christ. And this innate love for great kings points to the love and to the king that can overcome anything.

It is when a person casts off their desire to be the master of their fate and the captain of their soul, when they recognize the futility of their efforts, when they deny their longing to rule over their own life, that they cast their eyes to heaven and see the one true king, the king of glory, and say,

“There is one I could follow. There is one I could call king.”

Forth now, and fear no darkness.

Soli Deo Gloria

– Peter

The Tao of Christianity

Posted on by under Culture

 Seeking faith and wisdom in the writings of Lao Tzu.taijitu

There is a voice on the wind that calls for what someone termed “inter-faith dialogue.” That means different things to different people. For some, it is a cloak and dagger effort for conversion. For others, it is an academic exercise in perspective expansion. There are those who want to use it to water down every belief in the catch-all of universalism. And there are those who are not so much seeking a religious result, but a cultural one, hoping that a sit-down between rabbis and imams will not produce a resolution in theology, but rather a political or cultural shift that brings about peace and prosperity. I’m not sure of everyone’s agenda, but somehow inter-faith dialogue got into the water and there are some people who have put a great amount of importance on it, even if it’s rather unclear what the endgame of it all is.

I suppose I don’t fit into any of the above groups, although I am into academia and I’m all for peace and prosperity. But the problem I run into with this notion is that, as I understand it, inter-faith dialogue asks me to put an inordinate amount of value on common ground, when what really defines religions is how they are different. Put simply, I believe what makes Christianity different is that, while other faiths say “This is the way,” Jesus says “I am the way.” And, while I would like for people of other religions to also put their faith in Jesus Christ, I think there is a silliness to asking religious people to reserve the possibility that they are catastrophically wrong. Religion is important exactly because it is, well, important. Any religious person who believes other religions can also be “the way” are not, in my flawed human opinion, really religious. This doesn’t mean we have to fight wars over disagreements, but I believe religious people should value dearly whatever it is that they believe. In very John Owen-sy style, I’m just going to say that making defenses for all the counter-arguments that surely sprang up with that last statement “is not my present intention to demonstrate.”

But I think that, while still maintaining that the core of my belief system is the correct way of faith, there is still something to be gained from studying other religions. And by study I mean not simply learning that Muhammad was born in such and such year and had a revelation at such and such city. Being able to run down a few facts about major world religions is not of substantial value (although it’s better than nothing). What I mean by study is to actually read a sacred text and consider its teachings. And sometimes this might include talking with someone else about their religious beliefs **INTERFAITH DIALOGUE!**

I was drawn to this idea initially as I pondered a question that I think should unsettle any religious person given enough thought: If my religion is the right one, then why do people of other religions seem to find peace and fulfillment in their religion too?

There are a range of possibilities, but the one that I settled on was this: God’s fingerprints are everywhere, and if someone looks beyond themselves for answers, they may find the comfort that comes even with finding God’s shadow. Yahweh is too great not to be known. The heavens and the earth are his craftsmanship. Cicero is credited with saying that “Nature itself has imprinted on all the idea of god.” While the only true bridge between humanity and God is the god-man Jesus, the greatest revelation of God, perhaps it is possible for people seeking Allah or Vishnu to learn some of the truths of god using the spirit – so to speak – of the natural world as well as some sort of indwelling sense of spirituality.

Around the same time as I was considering this, I also continued to develop my affinity for things Chinese. Seriously, if the 1993 birth class was redrafted, China wouldn’t have passed on me in the millionth round. Physically speaking, my eyes are rather small, but even more remarkably I have scleral melanocytosis (gray spots on the whites of my eyes) that are more commonly found in the Asian population. As far as interests go, Chinese is my favorite kind of food, the erhu is probably my second most-favorite instrument, I like wushu fights and wushu films (Hero is in my top 5), and I just have an overall attraction to the Chinese aesthetic, be it architecture, calligraphy, pandas, dragons, weapons, landscapes, etc. (And, yes, for those of you keeping track of score at home, I think Chinese women are beautiful). Fam, I prefer to pray seated in the lotus position while listening to the guqin. While in the Field Museum’s Hall of China, I recognized the guqin song being played on the speakers. Get the picture?

But, more important than various and sundry interests of mine that are not the topic of discussion at the present time, I found that my worldview is startlingly Chinese. In one of my classes, I took a couple of tests that would assess my perspective dealing with values, social and cultural norms, and the like. My results on both quizzes more closely resembled the composite of answers given by Chinese citizens, not Americans.

So, naturally, I felt that I should look into the Chinese worldview. What is it like to see things from a Chinese perspective?

And I was also finding how Westernized my surroundings are. Not only socially/culturally, but religiously. Most versions of Christianity today are a western tradition, when Christianity started in the Middle East. What might it be like to look at faith and spirituality from an Eastern perspective? How might my Christian beliefs looked if filtered through Eastern philosophy?

All things considered, it shouldn’t surprise you that the text I decided to read twice this summer was the Tao Te Ching, a key Taoist text written by Lao Tzu sometime in the 6th Century BC.

There were two things that struck me about the Tao Te Ching. The first was the profound wisdom found on every page. This is a sacred text for a reason. Passage after passage contains a beautiful meditation on matters ranging from personal virtue to directions for leading a nation. It actually blew my mind. I loved reading it.

But the second thing that struck me was totally unexpected: Taoism is surprisingly Christian. Not in an ethical sense, as pretty much every religion is opposed to murder, rape, theft, etc. But in a theological sense, all the more surprising because because Taoism is generally considered pantheistic (no belief in an anthropomorphic God). Here is one passage from the Bible that will help illustrate one example of this:

“The world was given a beginning by that which could be called the world’s father. To know the father is to know the son, and in understanding the son you in turn keep close to the father.”

But that’s not from the Bible. That’s from Chapter 52 of the Tao Te Ching, only it uses “mother” instead of “father.”

But even more than particulars like this, the similarity lies in the value both texts place on surrender and the greatness of “god.” Throughout the Tao Te Ching, there is an emphasis on knowing oneself by emptying oneself, being a bowl that is ready to be filled, making humility extremely key. All things that are to be known or gained are supposed to come from knowing the Tao, the preeminent force through which all was created, and the Te, the Tao at work in the world. According to the Tao Te Ching, humans have a natural state that they should seek to return to, but instead they seek all sorts of vain pursuits to build themselves up, which causes the world’s problems.

That all sounds rather familiar, doesn’t it? Particularly if you are a Christian reader?

However, despite the sheer volume of wisdom and the striking similarities between Taoism and Christianity, the Gospel is still missing. Yes, the state of humanity and its relation to “god” is there, but the solution through the death and resurrection of Jesus is not.

So does that mean I throw the whole thing out?

There are a few good reasons that might persuade me to never read the Tao Te Ching again and move on. First and foremost: it’s a religion of man. At the end of the day, this is still the work of a human being, and is not divinely inspired. And besides this, while I might use the text as a source of wisdom and enlightenment, Proverbs 1:7 tells us that “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.” So is there anything that the Tao can teach me that the Bible can’t give me? Shouldn’t I really just read Proverbs and Ecclesiastes and James if I want to sound like a wise man?

Additionally, how can I be sure that all this wisdom even fits into Christian doctrine? There is a pervasive notion of action through inaction in the Tao Te Ching. Balance and moderation are key. I have not yet resolved if this is always helpful for a Christian, as Christians are called to take quite decisive action, actions that are often given violent metaphors. Even something like “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run… So run that you may obtain it” (1 Corinthians 9:24) would never be found in the Tao Te Ching. Isn’t Christianity very much a religion of action?

And, if I am looking for texts outside of the Bible to bolster my theology and doctrine, wouldn’t I be best just reading classics in Christian writing? Just this summer I read On the Mortification of Sin by the Puritan pastor John Owen, and it was life-changing. Are not the perspectives of Augustine, Anselm, Owen, Edwards, Lewis, Bonhoeffer, Piper, Keller, and even Trip Lee the ones that I should seek in order to further my love and understanding of God?

And, quite simply, there’s much ado in the Bible about not serving other gods. Couldn’t too much Taoism get a little dicey?

The above are really quite good reasons to set the Tao Te Ching aside and move on, keeping my Chinophile pursuits on the level of Avatar: The Last Airbender, traditional music, and General Tsao’s chicken.

But I’m not going to. Rather, with all of these reasons in mind, I will continue to come back to the Tao Te Ching, reading a chapter or two every few days (the chapters are really more like paragraphs).

I will do so, for one, because I believe the wisdom there is worth reading. I can’t see anywhere in the Bible that prohibits us from finding good advice from people just because they aren’t quoting the Bible. It turns out that Lao Tzu gives pretty darn good advice. And I’m going to take it.

That being said, I will be sure to compare it to my own scriptures. I will seek to understand how the yin and yang find themselves in the Bible. For they do, I am certain of it (ahem, Lion and the Lamb?). But this will force me to think more closely on both texts, relying on the authority of the Bible but using the Tao Te Ching as a sort of looking glass. Of course I will still hold to sola scriptura, and I will spend much much more time in the Bible, but I will give myself occasional doses of Taoism.

I believe this can help me to understand the Bible and my own theology and doctrine even better. For surely Christianity is not contained in a Western perspective. There is another world of philosophy out there that might temper certain understandings (even though the core of the belief must remain the same). As a result, this will, while increasing my knowledge and appreciation of another religion, actually more firmly establish my own religious views. In a sense I’m using interfaith dialogue to defeat one of the purposes of inter-faith dialogue (a weakening of religious zeal). Basically, by being a sort of Christian-Taoist, I will be even more Christian than I was before, if that makes sense.

And, besides this, keeping the Tao Te Ching, and perhaps some other sacred texts, close to me will further theistic mysticism – which in short is the idea that worship of other gods is preferable to atheism or agnosticism, as it acknowledges the insufficiency of humanity and looks for a solution “out there.” While the Bible spends a lot of time condemning false gods and idols, notably Baal and Asherah, I believe today’s Baal is the self. Humans worship the self and have made the individual a god. While the idols of ancient times were wood and stone, today’s is made of flesh and bone. But perhaps that discussion is for another day.

My final word to you is this: read the Tao Te Ching. Please. It’s quite short – readable in less than an afternoon – and you can find it for free here (although I prefer the Robert Brookes translation that I got for a dollar on Kindle). It will be worth your while.

And I’ll close with this, one of my most favorite passages from the Tao Te Ching, and one that has real similarity to Christian theology. Chapter 50 reads:

“You originate in life, but always return to death.
Three in ten people focus too much on extending life.
Three in ten people focus too much on fearing death.
Three in ten people focus on living life to the fullest
and thus find an early death. Why is this so?
Because such people live to excess.

It is said of the one in ten who successfully preserve their life:
When traveling they do not fear the wild buffalo or the tiger.
When in the battlefield they avoid armour and weapons.

The wild buffalo can find no place to pitch its horns,
the tiger can find no place to sink its claws,
the soldier can find no place to thrust his sword.

Why is this so?
Because he has no place for death in his life.”

Forth now, and fear no darkness.

Soli Deo Gloria

– Peter

 

Love is the Why – Why the Love Is

Posted on by under Culture
<p>Arizona Street Art</p>

“Jesus Saves”

Over the course of the last few weeks, I have posted some articles discussing American Christianity. It would be fair to call these posts criticisms, as I walked through why a lack of love has helped contribute to the decline in the number of Americans who call themselves Christians. I would say it has been, in some respects, an exercise in righteous anger. It has been a vehement exhortation for social change among American Christians.

I told you that love is the why.

But, as much as I believe that “love is the why” is a beautifully simple credo, and while I appreciate that DeRay McKesson continues to tweet it every few days as he continues his tireless work for racial justice, “love” is much too broad to be thrown around when speaking of topics of great importance, topics like the ones I spent the last few weeks posting about.

Let me be clear: American Christianity makes me very angry sometimes. And I earnestly hope that we will make efforts at all times to be loving, especially in areas of sin, gay marriage, racism, and politics, and I hope a lack of love is not the reason for an increasingly secular society.

And the reason for this love and this anger and this urgency is the love that our very name contains.

I am a Christian. By calling myself that I am a representative of Jesus Christ and the Gospel message.

And that message is the most important thing in the world.

Every good thing in the world is a reflection of the glory of God, and God’s most important revelation to humanity is the god-man Jesus.

God took the form of a Jewish carpenter, and after a ministry full of love through service to others and the glorification of God, the most innocent person in history died the most unjust death in history, bearing the entire brunt of God’s wrath against sin. Jesus lived the life we couldn’t live and died the death we should all die, in an act that shows not only Jesus’ love for God but Jesus’ love for us. Then Jesus conquered death and rose from the dead, giving us victory over the grave, allowing us to die to sin and be exalted with Jesus.

All love flows from God, and God’s most beautiful demonstration of this love came in the Gospel. The religion of Christianity exists because of the Gospel. Jesus’ disciples took his story to the nations and endured hardship, persecution, and death in an effort to bring the world the Good News.

How unconscionable is it that Christians should ever drive someone away from Christianity for a lack of love?

Yes – some churches are like country clubs and youth groups are sometimes just social time and the whole thing can just look more like a big politically interested organization built to maintain comfort for good honest Americans.

But that is not what Christianity is. It isn’t a game. And to just call it a lifestyle would even be an act of shortchanging.

It’s something to die for and it’s something to live for. It’s something that calls us to fight and also to surrender. It’s about knowing you’re wrong and seeking what is right.

And it’s all tied together by love.

Love is the why. Why? Because God is love.

I don’t always show this love, and neither does the body of American Christianity. But what we have in American Christianity is the peace of God which surpasses understanding. We have something of supreme importance, and we live in a nation full of people who need what we have. And the first step is love.

We’re allowed to disagree. No one has all the answers. But Christianity’s objective first and foremost is to show Christ-like love to all people. We are called to imitate Christ, and I believe that means an honest re-evaluation of American Christianity’s thoughts on sinning, gay marriage, racism, and politics.

The Gospel is taken as offensive because it calls everyone a sinner deserving death. The Bible is not politically correct. Christianity is, at its root, about being an outsider.

But “I am unashamed of the Gospel, for the it is the power of God to salvation for all who believe.” And if we live our lives as American Christians unashamed of Jesus Christ and as conduits of God’s overflowing love, then the power of the Gospel will work in the hearts and minds of a nation and a world that is crying out for a savior.

Maybe our nation will continue to become more secular.

Let Christians be all the more loving.

Soli Deo Gloria

– Peter