The Empire of the Church

"I love your Christ, but I dislike your Christianity"

This quote, usually attributed to Mahatma Ghandi, captures what is perhaps the biggest problem plaguing Christianity.

Ask any outsider of the faith what's the first thing that comes to mind when they think of Christians and they would be quick to tell you: homophobic, hypocrites, bigots, judgmental, self-righteous, anti-women, etc...

Might as well be describing a Pharisee!

Ask them what they think about Jesus, and you most likely get different answers.

How Did We Get Here?
I love reading about early Christians and the radicality that literally changed the world around them. Their upside down ways went in complete contradiction with the powers that be, and in their fight against these powers there was no other weapon or guns used against them, other than sacrificial love.

Early Christians were radical and puzzling to the outside world. Their declaration that "Jesus is Lord" went in direct contradiction with the world's declaration that "Caesar is Lord".

And then...Christianity became an Empire.

I won't go into much detail of how this came to be, but suffice it to say that Christianity became so intertwined with the Roman Empire that to be a Christian was to be tantamount to being part of the Empire.

This unlikely marriage brought about the institutionalization of Christianity, and becoming Christian became part of living in the Empire, and not necessarily living in Christ.

As all Empires, this Christian Empire was and still is more preoccupied with the care of itself rather than the care of its people.

We still see this in Christianity. I can give 2 examples of my own church, the Roman Catholic Church.

One is the fact that we have closed communion. If you are not part of the institution of the Roman Catholic Church, you are not allowed to partake of the Body and Blood of Christ.

Do you believe in Jesus? Well, that's awesome, but it is not enough to bring us to our table. Wait, you even believe in the Real Presence in the Eucharist? Oh man, I wish you can come and partake with me, but sorry. Wait?! You even believe in Transubstantiation?! You should come to RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults) classes, and maybe in a year, you can finally take communion with us!

The example given above goes to show, that even in the extreme case that a believer were in complete agreement with what the Roman Catholic Church teaches on the Eucharist, if he or she is not a member of the institution of the Roman Catholic Church, then he or she is not welcomed to partake of the Eucharist.

It is obvious then, that membership in the institution is more important than being part of the body of Christ. If you can't see how UnChrist like this is, then I don't know what else is!

The other is some letters of Bishops and Cardinals that shows how the Roman Catholic Church dealt with the sexual abuse scandal that plagues the Church. These dealings, and the constant moving of accused clergy to different churches, show how the Church was more preoccupied with taking care of itself instead of the people they pledge to serve.

All institutions of Empire seek their self-protection first, even at the expense of the flock,

They remind of the hired hand that Jesus mentions in John 10, and how they run away when the wolf comes and scatters and devours the sheep! They offer the sheep as sacrifice to save themselves and the institution, instead of imitating the Good Shepperd who lays down their lives for the sheep.

If you can't see how UnChrist like this is, then I don't know what else is.

The Answer? Jesus
When I read the Gospels, I cannot help but being filled with love for Jesus. He is just amazing, beautiful and welcoming.

I am not afraid of Him. Something about Him attracts me to the core. There is no one else that has shown me the face of God as faithfully as He has. In Him I see the Father, and when I behold His face, I behold the face of the Father.

He is beyond all else that is. Beyond all institutions, and all who desire can partake of His Flesh and Blood.

Institutions can burn people. They can scare people away from Him.

Here is the Good News: Christ is not the institutions. Sure, He can use the institutions, but then again He can use anyone!

To know Him is to love Him, for He is Love Incarnated. God came and became man. As crazy as that sounds, I believe it really happened!

God came and became one of us, took on our weak flesh and walked the earth. He moved in into our neighborhood. When He saw us, He decided to hang out not with the rich and powerful, but He hanged out with the poor and the oppressed. The marginalized and rejected.

He taught us. He chose us how to live and love others. Even to bless and pray for our persecutors!

And then we killed Him. He was too much for us. We wanted a powerful show of God's mighty power, and our addiction to power and violence demanded Him to smite our enemies. He refused, and we killed Him.

Our sinful violence killed Him. And as we pierced His side, He forgave us! We don't know what we are doing, He told us. Indeed, we didn't. And the blood, His beautiful blood, as it fell on our hands, instead of imputing guilt, it forgave us and redeemed us. Crazy, I know!

The day God died, darkness filled the sky. Our Evil won. We got our way.

3 days later, while the dawn was slowly birthing its light over a cold night, death got tired of holding Him. We tried to kill life but death ran away from Him, like darkness runs away from light!

And He rose. He really did! Not metaphorically, no. He bodily rose from the grave! We could even touch His scars, the living memories of His suffering. The pain that we caused Him left a mark in Him, and He came back not kill us in revenge, but instead to breathe new life in us! He told us "Peace be with you, receive the Holy Spirit". And as He breathed a second creation breath in us, we were born again.

This is the Gospel, the faith we have inherited. Christ has died, Christ is Risen. Christ will come again.

And this is the Christ that we are called to be as well. As many of us know, "Christians" means "little Christs". We are called to be Christ to the world. What we are at this moment is some adulterous union of Christianity with Phariseeism.

Institutions are not inherently evil, and to a certain extent necessary. We need the institutional church because we need a framework and system so that our handing over of the faith can continue once we are gone.

We need the Institutional church, yes, but this church must be submissive to the Church, the body of Christ, because the institutional church was created for the Body, and not the Body for the church.

Belonging to the Body comes first, the IC (Institutional Church) comes to the service of the Body.

I believe this is what Paul meant in 1 Corinthians 1:12, when the church in Corinth used to say "I follow Apollo" or "I follow Paul". Then Paul answers "Has Christ been divided?...Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?"

We need a new vision of the IC, one where the marriage with Empire is dissolved. We need one that doesn't require uncompromising devotion to the IC but to the Body, who is us and Christ Himself.

For we are baptized in the name of Christ, and not in the name of the Catholic Church, Presbyterianism, Martin Luther or non-denominational Protentatism.

The Importance of Recognizing Your Own Privilege

In last week's post I talked about how God's calling to men for leadership meant that men were called to give up their power and authority and serve as "the slaves of all", and how this makes sense in Jesus' pattern of humbling the powerful and uplifting the powerless.

This week I want to move beyond gender and their relation to power, and to the importance of recognizing our own privilege and power as followers of Jesus.

Why is this important? Isn't talk of privilege and power just another way of confusing liberal political values with the Gospel?

How Jesus deals with the powerful
Whenever we read the Gospels it is difficult to miss how he deals with certain people of power. We read about his encounters, debates and clashes with the Pharisees, and His rebuking of them.

We notice as well how he deals with the Roman authorities. In fact He doesn't really deals that often with them. He seems more occupied preaching the Kingdom of God to the poor and marginalized that He spends little time trying to convert the Romans.

In one famous encounter with the Rich Young Ruler, Jesus asks him to sell all he has, and give it to the poor. He is telling this to a man who has kept all the commandments! And yet Jesus tells him "one thing you lack". The one who had it all figured it out and had it all, so it seems, lacked one thing.

If we read carefully, we see that an undeniable pattern emerges in Jesus' encounters with people. With the rich and powerful He almost always deals in a negative way. With the poor and marginalized He almost always deals in a positive way.

Of course there are exceptions. But these exceptions do little to eradicate the undeniable pattern that emerges.

Why is it important, then, that we recognize our own privileges and powers?

It is important because if Jesus is the same today as He was yesterday, that means that His pattern of dealing with people of power, privilege and authority will most likely be the same now. This means that if Jesus is truly alive and risen, as Christians believe Him to be, His dealings with the rich and powerful NOW is most likely the same as it was THEN.

The Question really is, how do we want to be dealt with by Jesus?

If we miss to recognize our privilege and power, then we risk the danger of missing Jesus, or perhaps more accurately, Jesus missing us.

I believe this is not so much mixing liberal values with the Gospels, but this is most likely something that Liberals are correct about what the Gospels are telling us.

So how privileged are we really?
If you, dear reader, are living in the United States, or from another part of the "developed world", then you don't need me to tell you about our own privilege in terms with people of other poorer nations.

To deny our own privilege would be tantamount to being in a state of hopeless lunacy or unbelievable ignorance.

On a macro level, we are unbelievable privileged to live in a privileged and powerful nation.

On a micro level, we know that even in this powerful nation of ours, we still have people with less privilege and power. We will always have the poor among us.

We can recognize that minorities are statistically marginalized in this nation. People of color, undocumented immigrants, formerly incarcerated,  all of these are populations who we can recognize as underprivileged.

To deny this is to turn a blind eye to the statistics.

On a more personal level, I can recognize my own privilege. First, I am male. As a man, according to statistics, I am more likely to earn more money than women.

Yes, I am Latino and immigrant, and this has put me in a position where I lack power and privileges. I can tell you thousands of stories of how this has played out for me, but that is beyond the scope of this post.

And yet, within my own Latino community, I am privileged. I am college educated and have a great paying job with benefits. To deny my own privilege would be the definition of denial.


The Call of the Gospel
After we have examined our own power and privilege, then the crucial question, as followers of Jesus, is to ask ourselves, what is the Gospel calling me to do?

I believe the Scriptures are clear on this: we are to give up our power for the empowerment of others.

Whether we earned (or feel we earned) this power and privilege is irrelevant. Jesus rarely asks the rich and powerful how they earned their positions. Failing to see this can moves us to meritocracy, where we see ourselves as deserving and the poor as undeserving.

In my experience of living in the United States, I have time and time again seen how privileged people see themselves as deserving of this privilege, because they worked hard or because their families worked hard to get where they are.

While this may be true, failing to recognize your privilege often leads to a self-righteous perspective on the poor as lazy, not driven enough, and therefore undeserving of our sympathy, or worse, our help.

If this is our attitude to the poor, how can we reconcile our attitudes with Jesus' attitudes and dealings with the poor?

If Jesus is our example, shouldn't we imitate this undeniable characteristic of His ministry?

The calling of the Gospel is simple and yet terrifying: give up your power and use it not for your own comfort, but in service of others. If you can't identify your own power and privilege, then you won't be able to empower others as effectively.

It is hard to give what we ignore we have.