The Christian Paradox (2)

Last post I started with the idea of the paradox inherent in America calling itself Christian, as presented by Bill McKibben. Now we get into one of the possible reasons why this is so.

McKibben writes:

Are Americans hypocrites? Of course they are. But most people (me, for instance) are hypocrites. The more troubling explanation for this disconnect between belief and action, I think, is that most Americans—which means most believers—have replaced the Christianity of the Bible, with its call for deep sharing and personal sacrifice, with a competing creed.

As McKibben points out, in fact there are several competing Christian creeds in America. One area where American Christians are obsessed about is figuring out the schedule for the End Times. He gives a good website Rapture Ready for a taste of how some of these believes view the world.

And there are some End-Timers who believe in forcing the issue. They are convinced that can coax Jesus back to Earth if they “Christianize” America and then the world. Before you consider this crazy, McKibben points out that the House Majority Leader at that time, Tom DeLay was in church one day and the pastor was urging his flock to support the administration. He declared:

the war between America and Iraq is the gateway to the Apocalypse.

Now DeLay rose to speak, not just to the congregation but to 225 Christian TV and radio stations to pronounce:

Ladies and gentlemen, what has been spoken here tonight is the truth of God.

Of course, throughout history, there were some Christians announcing that the End Times were near. From the very beginning, the early Christians believed that Jesus was returning in their life time. But as the years went by, the reality of the End Times became cloaked and shrouded.

But comments from Tom DeLay show how a certain Christian creed has become infused in American politics. And there are people like Tim LaHaye with his Left Behind series or for Pat Robertson saying:

The Antichrist is probably a Jew alive in Israel today

that are trying to infuse it into the American psyche. But as McKibben points out, these apocalyptics are focused on the poetic and dense imagery of the Book of Revelation. The last of all the books of the Bible. McKibben asks:

Imagine trying to build a theory of the Constitution by obsessively reading and rereading the Twenty-fifth Amendment, and you'll get an idea of what an odd approach this is. You might be able to spin elaborate fantasies about presidential succession, but you'd have a hard time working backwards to “We the People.”

McKibben gives an interest example of this going backwards. Archbishop James Ussher (1581-1656), using the Bible, calculated that the world was created October 23, 4004 BCE and Noah’s ark came to rest on Mount Ararat on May 5, 2348 BCE, which was a Wednesday for him. Whereas this is interesting, it is but a distant distraction from the Gospel message.

Thing is, these apocalyptics are just one aspect of the problem. America has become the breeding ground of a competing creed that are rising from the sprawling megachurches that are growing all across America. Which spill onto TV with half-hour shows that almost seem like infomericals.

The apocalyptics can be dismissed but the output from these megachurches can’t. Their deviation from the main Christian creed is not obvious. In fact, much of was is preached in these massive structures isn’t off the wall, not loony at all.

But what these pastors do is focus relentless on you and your individual needs. As McKibben writes:

Their goal is to service consumers—not communities but individuals: “seekers” is the term of art, people who feel the need for some spirituality in their (or their children's) lives but who aren't tightly bound to any particular denomination or school of thought. The result is often a kind of soft-focus, comfortable, suburban faith.

As an example, McKibben points to a New York Times report that visited a booming megaplex church outside Phoenix. The reporter found a drive-through latte stand and they had Krispy Kreme doughnuts at every service. Some of the sermons included:

• how to discipline your children,
• how to reach your professional goals,
• how to invest your money, how to reduce your debt.

The report found that on Sundays, children played with church-distributed XBoxes and many of the flock had signed up for a twice-weekly aerobics class called Firm Believers.

One area where this creed has spread across America is just to look at the list of best-sellers compiled by the Christian Booksellers Association. When McKibben wrote his article, one of the top sellers was Your Best Life Now, by Joel Osteen. What is interesting is McKibben points out that the normally tolerant Publishers Weekly dismissed this book as:

a treatise on how to get God to serve the demands of self-centred individuals.

McKibben gives a few more examples of the best-sellers at that time. There is Beth Moore and her Believing God. She asks the tough questions concerning the fruit of a Christian life like “are we living as fully as we can?”

My favourite because I had heard about this book from my Christian friends is The Five Love Languages by Dr. Gary Chapman. This is a book that helps you figure out if you’re speaking in the same emotional dialect as your significant other.

I agree with McKibben, it is not that these books are bad. We live stressful lives and we need to pay attention to our own needs. We need positive things to help us through the day. And these text most likely have helped people to be better spouses or bosses. We can use all the help we can.

But the focus of this creed is the individual. They are presenting perfectly sensible advice yet they are managing to completely ignore Jesus’ radical and demanded focus on other. Yes it may be true that God helps those who help themselves, be it financially or emotionally, but that is just a subsidiary, secondary truth of Christianity.

As McKibben rightly points out, if one were to eliminate the Scriptural references in most of these best-sellers, ten to one they would have the same message. And whatever references they do pull out are just snippets of the whole message the Bible is trying to present.

And the Christian best-seller list mirrors the best-seller lists in the secular world. There is a fixation on self-improvement, on self-esteem. Bluntly on self! As McKibben writes:

These similarities make it difficult (although not impossible) for the televangelists to posit themselves as embattled figures in a “culture war”— they offer too uncanny a reflection of the dominant culture, a culture of unrelenting self-obsession.

What makes things even worse is these televangelists want their cake and eat it too. As they preach this creed, they want every break they can get from the government. They don’t want to pay sales tax on these books. A Christian theme park in Florida does not have to pay any taxes. A Christian retirement complex in South Dakota wants to be tax-exempt. Yet they want money from the government, from different levels to fund them for things like building their megaplex churches.

Daycare centres run by these different megachurches are exempt from all types of taxes including Social Security. Yet secular daycare centres are not. Now if these church run daycare centres were open to everyone, I don’t see a problem. Yet they are only for the parishioners. And for most of these megaplex churches, they are not that poor as is. Most are middle-class, affluent people.

The worst is how these megaplex churches try to get out of things like municipal taxes. These are taxes which are supposed to go into the infrastructure of the city these churches are in. It funds things like the fire department, water treatment, road repair. But they want all the benefits that the city has without paying for it.

They argue aspects of separation of church & state and some of the laws that exist to make pastors and such tax-exempt. But the Bible tells Christians that they should pay their taxes. When the Pharisees ask if it is right to pay taxes to Caesar, Jesus responds:

Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's [Matt 22:21 (NIV)]

And Paul, in the Letter to Romans, is even more explicit:

Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, who give their full time to governing. Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor. [Rom 13:5-7 (NIV)]

And by authorities, Paul means the government. Sort of makes these megaplex churches sound somewhat non-Christian, doesn’t it?

Now back to McKibben after that sidebar. He rightly says that it is not for him to criticize someone else’s religion. America was built on the idea of tolerating someone else’s religious expression. But the point here is to show that if you are going to profess that you are a Christian, then you should be walking like a Christian.

And it seems that neither the government nor the driving voices in America are really following the Christian message and summons.

McKibbin reveals in the article this all came about came about because he is an environmental writer mostly. It was his work with religious environmentalists that made him start to think about the essay I am commenting on.

He mentions that they have been trying to get politicians to understand why the Bible actually mandates protecting the world around us. There are complete sections that give sound advice on how to take care of the land around us, such as Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

McKibben points out countries like Norway and Sweden, where religion is relatively unimportant, who focus on things like carbon emissions, public transit, giving aid to the poor and making sure everyone has health care. As he asks how can that be? and says:

For Christians there should be something at least a little scary in the notion that, absent the magical answers of religion, people might just get around to solving their problems and strengthening their communities in more straightforward ways.

It may make people wonder, looking at some of the European successes compared to the American failure that it may be better to abandon religion for secular rationality. But for the foreseeable future, America will be a “Christian” nation. And McKibben then asks:

The question is, what kind of Christian nation?

Above I pointed to a couple of creeds that are dominating America: the apocalyptic End Times creed and the comfort-the-comfortable, personal-empowerment creed. But if one cracks open the New Testament, you find that these messages veil the actual and remarkable message of the Gospels. And that will be the concluding post for this piece, tomorrow.