I work with a woman who's an evangelical Christian. She's more of a "do good deeds" Christian than a "kill the gays" or "kill the liberals" or "keep evolution out of the public schools" kind of Christian. She has never once tried to proseletyze me, for all that she often spends vacations in inner-city neighborhoods leading a group of teenagers in efforts of conversion. It's live and let live, and we've both been fine with that, even though she knows where I stand.
What's always bothered me about the kind of Christianity that's about faith not deeds is that it demands nothing of the believer. Even if I were inclined to believe that a Jewish guy got nailed to a cross 2000 years ago to cleanse the sins of the world, I don't think I'd see it as a free pass to do whatever the hell I want. And yet, for some believers, particularly some of the more holier-than-thou types in politics, believing this doctrine does exactly that.
It seems to me that if someone went through that kind of torment for us, the least we should do is strive to be worthy of that kind of sacrifice. And yet, time after time, we have seen so-called Christian politicians invoke the sacrifice of Joshua of Nazareth as a kind of all-purpose cleansing cloth for the soul. "God has forgiven me" or "Jesus died for my sins" doesn't hold anywhere near the moral weight, as far as I'm concerned, as weighing the morality of one's deeds when faced with moral choices, and choosing the moral path just because it's the right thing to do. I wonder if this kind of "clean slate" Christianity just makes it too easy. Whether it's David Vitter patronizing prostitutes in New Orleans and then railing about the sanctity of marriage, or Larry Craig referring to Bill Clinton as "a very nasty boy" and then years later looking for sex with men in an airport rest room, or yes, John Edwards falling for some of the worst pickup lines in recorded history and still not being able to handle the idea of two guys who want to get married, I wonder if this Doctrine of Easy Forgiveness, instead of creating a moral standard to which we should strive to reach, actually creates a sense of infallibility -- that because Jesus died for our sins, we can do whatever the hell we want without consequences. After all, if all you need do to get into heaven is to believe this story, and that deeds don't matter, what's the point of doing good? I mean, if it doesn't buy you, say, a better table at the Pearly Gates Cafeteria, why not have the fun?
I thought about this after reading the very different responses given by Barack Obama and John McCain last night when asked by Rick Warren what Christianity means to them on a daily basis. From a PR Newswire press release:
When Warren asked Obama about what Christianity means to him on a daily basis, the Senator responded, "It means I believe that Jesus Christ died for my sins and that I am redeemed through Him. That is a source of strength and sustenance on a daily basis. I know that I don't walk alone. But what it also means, I think, is a sense of obligation to embrace not just words, but also through deeds and expectations that God has for us. And that means thinking about the least of these - acting justly, loving mercy and walking humbly with our God."
In response to that same question about his personal Christian faith, McCain replied, "It means I am saved and forgiven."
What Obama seems to be getting at here, is that the sacrifice of Jesus is not a get out of jail free card, but instead a reminder of what we are capable of enduring when we must, and also of the obligation that sacrifice demands of us; that we are redeemed through following the path of sacrifice and justice and mercy.
Contrast that to John McCain, the one who used the passive voice to describe "the failure of" his first marriage, as if it was just some kind of "stuff happens" random event, instead of the act of a man with so little moral center that he thought it perfectly OK to cast aside a wife who waited for him for five years, just because she had encountered adversity in the form of an automobile accident, and trade her in for a young, pretty heiress who could bankroll a political career. To John McCain, the crucifixion places no obligation on him whatsoever. That Joshua of Nazareth got nailed to a cross is his own misfortune, not McCain's -- but John McCain still gets to reap the benefits of that sacrifice.
As if anticipating people like me writing things like this, McCain went on:
"Our Judeo-Christian principles dictate that we do what we can to help people who are oppressed throughout the world. I would like to tell you that I still think that even in the worst places in the world today, they still harbor this hope and dream someday to be like us and have freedom and democracy. We remain, my friends, the most unusual experiment in history and I'm privileged to spend every day of my life in it. I know what it is like to be without it."
But that's a political statement, not a spiritual one. The minute he adds "Judeo-" to the "Christian" in that discussion, it becomes about politics, not about Christianity, because Judaism does not allow for the divinity of Joshua of Nazareth. He also falls for the notion that our country is somehow divinely-inspired, and as such is a kind of Jesus-for-the-world; a beacon of democracy, as if democracy were codified in the Bible he claims to take as a holy book. His expansion of his remarks is about dogwhistling to the audience, not about an expression of what Christianity means to him personally. What it means to him personally is right there in his first sentence: "I am forgiven." Spoken as only a narcissistic man with a guilty conscience can.
Someone once told me that the reason it always seems to be conservative Christians who get caught in the infidelity trap when it occurs in high-profile politicians is that Satan specifically targets Christians -- as if God and Satan were the stars in some kind of cosmic Kevin Smith movie, playing skee-ball for money, with souls as the currency of choice -- and Satan gets extra double bonus points for Christians who succumb to temptation. I'll throw John Edwards into this equation too, because as a Southern Baptist, he also fits the profile of the "faith not deeds" Christian.
I disagree with this notion, because it's part of a narcissistic theology that posits a spiritually cataclysmc event in the history of mankind as being All About Me. Jesus died for ME. Satan targets ME. It's all about ME.
Sorry, but ME and YOU and US just aren't that important in the larger sphere of things. Morality, the ability to weigh two options and make choices, even when one choice involves sacrifice, is what sets us apart as humans. And nothing, not even the excruciating pain of a man who may have lived and died over two millennia ago, takes away our responsibility to honor that ability. Not even John McCain gets to escape that responsiblity -- or the consequences of making the wrong choices.
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