Arrogant Naivete: Squirming Through Easter Sunday
There is one Jesus, but so many different ways of understanding what he said
For as long as I can remember, I have wrestled with the fact that there is great suffering in the world despite the presence of God and God’s son, Jesus, and the organized religion so many claim as their own, Christianity.
It has never made sense to me that, despite the teachings of Jesus, which seem so clear, there is hatred and bigotry, a disregard for people experiencing poverty and those suffering in so many different ways. I have shuddered when I have realized that so many who call themselves Christian have either been active bigots and accepting of the oppression of so many, or silent about all that happens that appears to be directly contradictory to Christian doctrine as described and taught using the Gospels and specifically, the words printed in red, which supposedly are direct quotes of Jesus.
I am working on developing a concept I’m calling “arrogant naivete” that characterizes the way all of us think when it comes to God, religion, and specifically, Christianity. I’ve come to understand that there is no one way to interpret religious beliefs. The words we read may be the same, but our understanding of those words varies greatly based on how we were raised, where we grew up, who taught us about God, and our own basic beliefs about this world and the people who inhabit it.
We - individuals and social groups alike - all live in silos in which our beliefs sit, and because those beliefs are not only what we know but also what we grew up with, we believe we are right, regardless of anything that challenges them. We stay where we are, for better or worse.
When it comes to Christianity, the silo phenomenon is stark. In my silo, Jesus is a man who cares for and loves all people. Jesus is the one who taught us to forgive our enemies and love our neighbors, regardless of who they are. Jesus reaches out to and touches those whom society holds in contempt. In my silo, Jesus is the one who challenges our bigotry, our prejudices, and our fears; he teaches that we are to follow him, follow his example, not worship him. He says, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me. Jesus’ words, for me, in my silo, are wise and insightful, used to help us understand what it is to have life on earth, as it is in heaven.” His entire life was spent teaching us how to navigate life to bring about Beloved Community.
Because I was raised that way, and I deeply believe in what I was taught, I am arrogant enough to believe that my way of believing is the way the Gospels should be understood.
But not everyone was raised that way. Some who call themselves Christian interpret the words of Jesus that I interpret one way in an entirely different way, or ignore them altogether. I frequently go back to the way I felt when I read words in Taylor Branch’s Pillar of Fire spoken by the late West Virginia Democrat Senator Robert Byrd. When he was asked, given his rabid racism, if he didn’t believe in the words of Jesus, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” he said he did, but also believed that people could choose their neighbors.
That’s not how I understand the scripture, where Jesus clearly quotes the Great Commandment in Matthew 22. But that’s the interpretation in my silo. The way I understand Jesus’ words, the option of choosing our neighbors is not included in Jesus’ response. But the fact is, just as I live in my silo and am arrogant about what I learned and it being right, so does Byrd, and people who live in silos where the inferiority of certain people has been taught as being correct. Byrd’s silo and mine do not meet, nor do they intersect.
Much of what I hear in this country in terms of Christology is directly opposite to what I believe, and much of the reason for that is that America’s Christology is directly linked to the sanction and acceptance of the enslavement of Africans in this country. In the book Preaching in Hitler’s Shadow: Sermons of Resistance in the Third Reich, editor Dean Stroud provides a deep dive into Christology as believed in and practiced by Germans under Hitler. Christianity came “under attack from every side,” Stroud writes. “Without a sense of sin, there is no need for Christ… For Nazis, sin and forgiveness demonstrated passivity in a culture that honored forceful actions and glorified the hero who bends the world to his will” (p. 20)
Echoes of that belief in Christ as a strong male figure have been heard throughout this most recent rise of White Christian Nationalism. Many in that movement believe that Jesus, from his appearance as created by Eurocentric artists to his words, is weak. That image and depiction are totally rejected.
Clearly, in this country, there is a great divide as to what is a sin and what is not; abortion, the most contentious and heinous sin for the past 50 years, was created as a wedge issue when openly white supremacist schools lost their federal funding. Groups within their silos define moral issues. So, while abortion is a sin in some silos, racism, sexism, and homophobia are not considered sins. Translated, from my silo, “they” believe that God is OK with racial and gender-based oppression and violence.
Stroud continues: “The most basic of Christian truths – that God is love, that we are to be imitators of Christ whose love for us reaches it pinnacle at Golgotha, that we are to forgive “seventy times seven” and that God will judge each of us against his standards rather than the world’s presented a fundamental challenge to everything Hitler and followers represented.”(p. 21)
“The German Christians, then, were Christians who read the gospel through extremely nationalist and anti-Semitic lenses.” (p. 22) “German Christians,” Stroud continues, “redrew the doctrines of the faith to fit the worldview of the Nazis: an Aryan Jesus, no Old Testament in the Bible, at least not as an authentic part of the canon: the elimination of the Jew Paul and all his letters; and a watered-down New Testament that would present Germans with a Germanic Christ who fought the Jews the same way as Nazis.” (p. 23)
There it is – another silo, within which many Americans, it seems, reside.
So, not only yesterday but for all of Holy Week, I squirmed. What are we doing? What is salvation? Who is “saved” by their belief in Jesus? That fact is that “Christians” who believe in a God who condones white supremacy, state-sanctioned violence, and reject much of what Jesus said, were celebrating the gift of salvation, using the same historical figure, Jesus, as the north star, as those who celebrated the Jesus who taught love and forgiveness. The Christians who look at the current president as having been sent by God to save the white race celebrated with joy, as did those who celebrated it as evidence of the power of love and forgiveness to release people from oppression and bigotry.
There are probably more silos in which the beliefs about Jesus, what he taught, and what he stands for don’t fit either of the two mentioned here. Still, the reason I squirmed is that I know that this major Christian holiday represents the beliefs of those whose heels are dug into their silos, arrogantly believing that their truth is the truth.
And my question is, “Can a country that is in such economic, psychological, sociological, and spiritual disrepair survive with these silos squeezing their own interpretation and meaning out of words and lessons that seem so clear?
I don’t know.