There are certain (often commonly used) Christian terms that I always have found deeply confusing, un-understandable. One is "redemption".
People have (for centuries) talked confidently about Jesus Christ redeeming mankind, of the world's need for redemption etc. They talk as if "redemption" was a clear and precise technical term, an obious thing; and as if it was axiomatic that redemption (above all!) was what Jesus did - the main thing Jesus accomplished.
So again I read into the subject a bit, looked at the explanations of redemption suggested by various historical theologians, and at some of the various denominations, and considered what they meant by redemption; and yet again I felt as if I was being pressed down and crushed by swarms of crazed and biting insects!
I wonder how many others have felt like this?
On the one hand, it would seem that what Jesus did must have been simple and easy to grasp - given the broad historical facts and context. On the other hand, it seems that almost immediately after Jesus's ascension, all kinds of things were being ascribed to him that were either incomprehensibly abstract and paradoxical - or else wildly at variance with what Jesus said and did.
A word for this effect is stultifying: the effect is demoralizing.
And it went on, and on, and on - until so much mass and inertial momentum had been accumulated, that it seems (for many/ most Christians) that there is (literally no alternative but to submit.
The idea of redemption itself seems to have arisen as some kind of error, perhaps for different and almost opposite reasons, or from different agendas... It is as if the idea that "what Jesus did" was to redeem Mankind, and The World, was swiftly accepted as a solid and mandatory assumption, without any agreement about what redeem actually meant or implied, or how it had worked (even in the broadest terms)!
The sense I make from this is that here, as in so many other ways, Jesus was inserted-into pre-existing philosophical and theological schemes - whether Jewish, Christian, or other.
My conviction is that most of the people who wrote about Jesus in the early years after his ascension, made sense of Jesus in terms of what they already believed before Jesus's ministry - and these were the people who set the agenda for the various churches for centuries to come; until the quantity of commentary and contradiction has become unopposable* and appalling.
*(i.e. It cannot be opposed, only ignored.)
In this, as so many ways; Christianity painted itself into a corner. Only those who were able to live with a permanent state of imprecision and contradiction were able to participate in the discourse. Anyone who seriously tried to make sense of things and get at the truth - was excluded.
It's hard for me to express (because it apparently invisible to most people!) my horror at the way Jesus Christ and what he did has been enmeshed in vast webs of other stuff.
A new Christian may begin with a wonderful sense of simplicity and clarity; but is almost immediately confronted by enmeshing menaces wherever he turns. And the new Christian will find that such-and-such is regarded as absolutely necessary to being-a-Christian - that "being-a-Christian" is something which takes place only within these assumptions - that there is asserted to be no real way of being-a-Christian except within such assumptions...
What's worse is that the simple and obvious truth and reality which led to becoming a Christian, somehow gets reversed, in all sorts of ways. The whole thing gets smothered by an endlessly regressing external weight of mandatory demands; which cannot be grasped and must just be accepted and obeyed.
"Myself", as an individual, is implicitly (sometimes explicitly) regarded as utterly trivial, insignificant, of no consequence to the vast mechanism of Christianity - except in disobedience! By such an account; to be a Good Christian is to acknowledge and act as a tiny and inessential cog in a vast machine; and if the cog fails to accept this role, then he will be spat-out into the consuming void beyond the machine.
Because life in service to the machine is so utterly miserable and hope-less - the only consolation is that our reward is that we will (at some point) become so utterly changed as to find it wholly blissful.
This is nebulous, and un-consoling - because such a transformation would be to convert me into somebody-else (or some-thing else); so in practice the main incentive is always negative...
"You may find this unsatisfying, but if you dissent then you will be actively tortured forever - so shut-up and get-on-with-it!"
(Of course, this kind of threat doesn't happen much nowadays - not for good reasons but because faith is so utterly feeble that almost nobody really believes their church - as was evident in 2020 and by lack of repentance since. But for much of history and in many places; the negative incentives of Christianity were much more strongly asserted than the positive: fear rather than hope was the major drive.)
I am trying to express here something of vital import: which is the false and evil idea that in becoming a Christian one should be subordinating oneself to a vast social and intellectual structure - one to which the proper attitude is submission (although such fear-full obedience is often praised as "humility").
My counter-assertion is that the freedom, agency, and chosen personal commitment by which somebody becomes a Christian; these are attributes that ought to be carried through into the life of faith.
We should not just begin in freedom, but stay in freedom...
Stay in a Christian freedom dedicated to a personal quest of love, truth, virtue, beauty and other Christian values.
A freedom that is rooted in the personal and not the abstract...
Rooted in our relations with the persons of God and Jesus Christ - certainly not defined by our obedience and service to organizations, or bodies of texts and commentaries, nor to traditions of teaching.
To be a Christian ought not to be intimidated, crushed and suffocated by "the past" - but a joyous (because hope-full) engagement in the present quest of life - and in context of an eternal resurrected future.
That can be so - but only when we as individuals "make it so"?
And in the face of a great mass of would-be suffocating opposition.
12 comments:
Your post instantly brought Anselm to my mind. He took the position of Fides Quaerens Intellectum which in practice meant submission to the theological construction of The Church (and The Church as a whole and the Papacy). I take his opening statements in his works about being perfectly willing to retract anything in conflict as totally sincere. Historically, he was at the epicenter of Papal and Kingly conflict and ended up at (I think) an ultra-montane position. At the same time, he really did manifest an intellectual freedom and daring.
I'm also reminded of Dante, who loaded himself down with poetic and theological constraint after constraint and ended up with an incredibly original body of work.
It's a heady and confusing subject.
By my understanding it just does not, and cannot, work - if we try (and Many have tried over the past century-plus) to base our faith on medieval models and medieval minds.
jeff freegle has left a comment:
The simplest way to make "redemption" make sense: He redeemed Jews from having to keep the stupid ceremonial law anymore, and Gentiles from being polytheists.
@jf - (Yet Another definition of redemption.)
But neither of those things actually happened! Some Jews still adhere to laws that seem stupid to other religions. Some Gentiles were already not polytheists (eg. Zoroastrians), many others continued to be polytheists up until now (e.g. Hindus and Buddhists) - many other Christians later became Muslims.
I thought Jesus redeemed us from death, sin and evil by eternal, resurrected life, and the absence of divinisation/communion-with-Him by giving us divinisation/communion? Redemption seems understood by cinema and most people to me. It means good having the last word that beats the past cumulative evil. Doesn't it?
Excellent post. I suppose this is why I so appreciate Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor chapter in Brother's Karamozov. It cuts through all the fluff and gets right to the heart of the matter -- Jesus wanted people to be free, but people don't want to be free, are terrified of being free, and, ultimately, will resent Jesus for being free and desiring them to be free. Better to stick with the Grand Inquisitor, who will gladly unburden everyone of their freedom and replace it with Miracle, Mystery, and Authority. And it matters not at all that the Grand Inquisitor is actually working with the Dread Spirit of Self-Destruction and Non-Existence.
There's that famous saying, "In theory there's no difference between theory and practice, but in practice, there is".
There have been various theories about Christianity and according to some people, it's the theories that are the basis for everything else.
Yet, the culture formed by the practice of the many decent Christians has been the substance of Christian life for many (if not most) Christians over the centuries.
I think part of the issue is that Christian theology was shaped by people who lived in a pagan world and still understood the meaning of the performance of sacrifices to the gods at an intuitive level. The Christian era that followed the destruction of the Jewish temple has ended the efficacy and understanding of sacrifices. So we now have theology that's very hard to understand for contemporary minds. Repentance, forgiveness and resurrection is understandable for us however, so I prefer to understand things in those terms.
Sorry if my comment isn't specific to this post. I really like your blog and I've shared a few of your posts with friends and loved ones. Have you considered collecting some of these posts and compiling them into a book, specifically to explain your concept of Romantic Christianity?
@Thomas - I don't intend to write any more published books, as they take me a lot of work and effort, and yield nothing much.
Experience suggests that (with my tiny potential audience) an essay/ blog post is as likely - or more likely - to have discernible impact, as a book.
Most recently; I gathered Romantic Theology insights into the Lazarus Writes online "book" (see sidebar), but it seems no more valuable than the original blog posts - maybe less. At any rate, hardly anybody looks at it and nobody references it!
If I ever do anything worthwhile, I think it would be quite easy for The Creator to bring it to the attention of anyone who might benefit from it. Human efforts in this direction seem (again in my experience) to lead to the wrong kind of publicity and the wrong kind of influence, among the wrong kind of people.
Indeed, in the process of becoming well-known (in the world as it is), ideas often get inverted! It's happened to me, in a small way.
@Frank - Dostoevsky shows that Romantic Christianity goes back a long way, as Barfield argued. But what it has lacked was a metaphysics, a philosophy - at least, one that cohered with its romanticism.
That is understandable, thank you for the reply. The reason I, personally, would love some of the main information/posts on the topic in a book format is because it would be easier to share with some people I know who, for whatever reason, have an aversion to blogs, and just give them a book to read. Either way, I know I will remain a reader of your blog for a long time to come. I appreciate what you do :)
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