I grew up Methodist in suburban Boston.
Methodists are nice, regular,
maybe-a-bit-boring-but-wouldn’t-you-rather-have-boring-neighbors type
people. Dogmatically, we believe that Jell-O should always be served
with something suspended inside; tiny marshmallows, mandarin orange
slices, pineapple chunks, little plastic army men, what-have-you.
Think white bread, Miracle Whip, Ford Taurus and The Carpenters.
Which was why my friend Dave’s theory about LSD in the communion juice was so astounding to me.
That whole time growing up, I never once associated
Jesus with politics. He was the Son of God. He loved the little children,
healed the sick, came back from the dead, taught in neat parables and
ran the show. Many of my friends and all of my family were reasonable,
friendly, helpful Methodists.
It was only years later, at college, when I learned that my Protestant upbringing and beliefs would tend to get me lumped in with "conservatives." I wasn’t quite ready for that, as I’ve been a serious liberal since the age of 11 when I found out who was paying for my public school education. Hanging out with singers, musicians, artists, writers and actors my whole young life probably sealed the deal. But, again, I hadn’t associated my religious beliefs with my political beliefs; they were compatible to me, and nobody ever brought it up in a way that made me question their logical relationship.
Until 1984. I was a freshman at Cornell. Many types
of people not found in Needham, Mass were stuffed into cinder-block
dorms built by a guy who’d only ever designed prisons before he got the
Cornell gig. I’m not kidding – my room was a sherbet orange 12′x15′
cinder-block box. It was, in the parlance of 1984, "heinous."
I met kids in U-Hall-5 from all over the country
and the world. Rich identical twins from Texas. An audiophile from one
of the Whatever-Stans in the USSR. A Chinese guy who never, ever talked
to anyone. A hairy, ribald weigh-lifter from New Jersey who we wished
would take a cue from the Chinese guy. A Belgian surfer.
And there was Dave. My dad would have described
Dave as "a long-haired hippie weirdo freak." Frankly, that was probably
how Dave would have described himself. He was a very mellow dude who
came across as much older than 18. He seemed wise, worldly and slightly
mysterious. He walked with a slow, measured stride. I could picture him
as a monk or sensei of some kind. He once threatened to beat the crap
out of me if I killed the spider I had been about to squash.
When Dave found out that I was not only a
Christian, but would admit it, he asked me if I’d ever had any
"religious experiences." He was an atheist, raised by atheists, and
actively believed in the non-existence of God. If it’s possible to be an
evangelist for the absence of deity, that would be Dave.
"What do you mean, ‘religious experiences’ ?"
He shrugged. "I don’t know. You’re the Christian, Andy. You tell me."
"Well," I said, "I spent every Sunday morning for
13 years in Sunday School and every Thursday night rehearsing with the
choir. I’ve been bike riding on Martha’s Vineyard and beach-partying on
the Cape with my youth group. I’ve gone caroling at nursing homes, have
helped stock soup kitchens and washed cars to fund our activities. Do
any of those count as a ‘religious experience?’"
He shook his head. "No. Not ordinary experiences
related to your religion. An experience that transcends the mundane.
Have you ever experienced the divine?"
Since I had, I answered, "Yes."
He nodded quietly. The thing about hippie weirdo
freaks is that they respect all types. Folks from outside the mainstream
have a refreshing tendency to develop tolerance.
"Have you ever considered," he continued
thoughtfully, "that maybe the clergy spiked your communion wine with LSD
or some other hallucinogenic substance?"
The clergy? Oh. Rev. Guinn. A very large, very warm
man whose stories of Christian missionary work in communist China were
pretty thrilling. But that was about as exciting as it got at church.
"Dave," I explained, "Rev. Guinn couldn’t have spiked the communion wine."
"Why not?"
"First of all, it’s not wine. It’s Welch’s grape
juice. Officially, Methodists are tee-totalers. Second of all, I’ve seen
Mrs. Guinn pour the juice into the tiny cups. I’ve even helped a few
times. It’s juice. No acid."
"Jim Jones’ gang didn’t know they were drinking poison, either, Andy."
OK. This was getting bizarre.
"Dave," I explained, "My most deeply felt religious
experience did not involve communion at all. I had an epiphany while on
a mission trip in Montana the summer after 10th grade. It was on this trip that I was, to use a sometimes touchy term, ‘born again.’"
He winced. All my liberal friends wince when I cop to being born again.
I explained how ‘born again’ means different things
to different people. In my case, it was a realization that I actually
believed and felt all the stuff I’d been taught. Before that point,
Christianity had been for me mostly a cultural and social thing. After
that, the call to follow Christ made sense to me on a fundamental, core
level that has helped sustain and inform my spiritual life ever since.
Why was my Christianity so hard for Dave to fathom?
It turns out he’d had some personal experiences with "Shouting
Christians," as he called them. We had a few "old-time-religion"
preachers up on campus every now and then, and Dave had verbally tussled
with one of the loonier Bible-thumpers.
Brother Jeb – which is what he called himself –
preached against fornication, masturbation, communism, socialism,
abortion, homosexuality and drunkenness. Now, at a college campus in the
late 80′s, five of those things are considered mainstream leisure
activities. Dave tried to get a clear, reasonable, thoughtful answer
from Brother Jeb on the subject of evolution. Didn’t happen. Jeb wasn’t
interested in discussion; he wanted to rant.
And so, in Dave’s encyclopedia of life, the entry
for "Christian" was illustrated with pictures of Pat Buchanan, Jerry
Fallwell, Pat Robertson, Brother Jeb… and now, me. Which made me deeply
uncomfortable. Still does. My politics put me somewhere to the left of
Liz Warren. It really itches to be lumped in with people whom I consider
politically idiotic and evil.
After talking a bit longer, I finally realized why
Dave wanted to believe I’d been drugged into a Methodistic euphoria of
some kind. It would explain why a liberal, well-behaved, reasonable
friend of his was willing to belong to the same group as Brother Jeb.
I didn’t know enough about my own beliefs back then
to clarify it very well to Dave. But if I could go back in time, here’s
what I’d tell him:
"Dave," I’d begin, "Jesus was a huge liberal. In
fact, he’d probably get along a lot better with you than with Jerry
Fallwell." That’s the beginning of the conversation I should have had
with Dave.
These days, it’s the conversation I have with my
liberal friends to explain my Christianity, and with my conservative,
Christian friends to explain my liberal beliefs.
Why is it that conservatives have become the
presumptive Christian voice in America? The dictionary says of
conservatism, "Favoring traditional views and values; tending to oppose
change." Which is fine, I guess, except for the fact that Jesus calls
his followers to a life of change and renewal. He calls people to love
those who are different, to forgive enemies, to be meek, to make peace,
to reject wealth and to be prepared to sever any ties with family,
friends and authority in order to follow Him.
I’m not (much) going to get into the almost
farcical contrast between the life Christ led – the life Christians are
supposed to emulate – and that practiced by many leaders of the current
far-right, Republican, neo-con camp. I will, however, ask how anyone can
read the New Testament as anything but a call for progressive beliefs
and actions.
The answer: Many Americans are confused. On the one hand, Americans like wealth, status, comfort and patriotism We like clear definitions of "us and them." We like
being the good guys and we love to open a can of whup-ass on the bad
guys. On the other hand, Christ’s message speaks of giving away wealth,
giving up status, hanging out with the poor and oppressed, and loving
enemies.
There are millions of people who consider
themselves conservative and Christian. They either have a different
definition of conservative than that in the dictionary, or they haven’t
really looked at the life of Jesus. I’ll assume it’s the former. In
which case, let’s take a look at the definition of "liberal:"
Not limited to or by established, traditional,
orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from
bigotry. Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress,
and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded.
Doesn’t that sound more like the man who ate with
thieves and prostitutes? Who said that we must love our enemies as well
as our friends? Who brought a message of salvation not just for his own
ethnic tribe, but for everyone?
The establishment in Christ’s day were the
Pharisees and Sadducees. Christ called these groups, at various times, a
brood of vipers, snakes, hypocrites, blind fools, and (my favorite)
whitewashed tombs. All but one of Christ’s disciples died violently at
the hands of the establishment.
For the first 300+ years of its history, the
Christian church was violently suppressed by conservative forces. Martin
Luther and other early Protestants were hounded and killed by an
established church that had become synonymous with greed and political
corruption. The Puritans – whose name was considered an insult back in
the 17th century – came to America to escape persecution at the hands of their
governments. These were all reformers. These were all groups that took
the Good News out of the hands of tyrants and put it back into the hands
of the poor and the oppressed. These were all liberals.
Conservatism seeks to maintain a status quo. Guess
what? The poor don’t like the status quo and the oppressed aren’t ever
fond of the current administration. If you’re not rooting for the
"little guy," you’re probably not lined up with the Word. Political
policies that favor “them that has” over “them that’s not” are almost
always going to be in direct contradiction to the teachings of Christ.
Of course there are many liberal Christians and
many conservative atheists; it’s not a one-to-one match up. But the
predominant public persona of Christianity these days seems to be highly
conservative. I think that’s a shame. Christ was (and is, for
believers) a liberal. I wish my non-Christian, liberal friends had more
public role-models of openly Christian, liberal thinkers.
Having said that, I would still agree that Jesus is the model progressive thinker, in that He believed in a system outside the mainstream. He was more faithful to Himself than He was to the world. In that respect, we should follow Him more closely.
Jesus preached love, mercy and grace. All of these things require an understanding that “the other” is at least as important as “the self.” This mindset is impossible in an atmosphere of conservativism; you cannot serve two masters. And if one of them is yourself — your own wealth, power, comfort, whatever — serving God will be forfeit.
Thanks again for the comment; I appreciate you stopping by.
my conclusion and remedy is both simple and complex, the gospels stand alone and do not need the help of paul’s letters, there is so much contradiction between Jesus’s liberal views and Pauls submissive stance, much of the conflict in church is because people follow the conservatism of Paul’s writing and forget about the passionate abandonement of Jesus works (or vice versa). Paul asks us to except the Jesus died to atone for our sins, but Jesus asks us to walk with him and discover “life”. I find personally that if I am not actively searching for Christ, I am going backwards in my faith and i am not so sure His saving grace is always there
lets keep the message simple, love God and love one another, something I find the church is lacking today, lets be active in our faith, non-violent and with compassion in our hearts,
PS: great commentary, love your website
https://www.facebook.com/TheChristianLeft
However, my family and other church friends have just about completely abandoned me as if this choice is anti-Christian. It is sad that seeing the forest for the trees for once in your life and opening up to the realization that the Liberals (currently more so on the Left) are more aligned with my spiritual beliefs. I too wish there were better examples of Christian Liberals on the Left for both the mass populace to see as well as the Christian Right. It seems to me that Martin Luther King Jr was in that vein and some others in the past, but since the late 70′s when the Right Wing realized the power of courting the Christian vote we have seen nothing but Christian leaders strong-arming their followers to be on the Right – to be Conservative.
God bless for sharing your story. I pray God opens the eyes and the minds of the Christian Right so that they realize Jesus really was a liberal.
“It is sad that seeing the forest for the trees for once in your life and opening up to the realization that the Liberals (currently more so on the Left) are more aligned with your spiritual beliefs IS NOT ACCEPTED OR EVEN TOLERATED by your Christian brothers and sisters.”
In Appalachia, we might be prone to share this analogy about our current RNC Party and its politicians: you can’t make chicken salad out of chicken manure – so when the salad stinks (as theirs does), you know to keep the fork out of it!