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March 27, 2008Deconstructing Christianity, Itself - UPDATEDRegular readers know I am not one of those easily offended types who get a case of the vapors at every salvo blasted at Christianity or the Christ or his Blessed Mother. I figure Christianity - if it is true, and it is - can stand up to the slings and arrows of the world, Mary has her own way of dealing with anyone stupid enough to disrespect her (hint - she hounds you with love until you give in) and Jesus has the big shoulders that are required to carry the cross or move the world, so he can deal with sneers and snivelers. The reason I am not easily offended is because so much of what gets Christians up-in-arms is as the grass that withers and fades. The Da Vinci Code was so much a product of the world that it is already as forgotten as most of yesterday’s news.
Perpetually adolescent Madonna’s lifelong and recurrent cruci-fixations made me chortle at her. Oh, look, Madge is on her cross again and is that a red shirt she’s wearing? Oh, how freakin’ brilliant! A red shirt to symbolize blood - who woulda thoughta that? She’s just a freakin’ genius, that Madonna, ain’t she? No wonder the world loves her!
So, it takes a lot to offend my Christian sensibilities. I admit, I was mildly put off by the adolescent hunky Jesus contest in San Francisco - mostly because, you know, it is HOLY WEEK fellas - why not show a little of your vaunted sensitivity, hey? But mostly I just felt sorry for these people who seem like they’re trying to convince themselves of something, and failing. I did finally find something to offend me, though (although truthfully, I am less offended as a Christian than as a tail-end baby boomer) thanks to Deacon Greg, who never fails to find the interesting nugget, and this one is especially interesting: the tale of the “progressive” “Christian” church that does not want to talk about Christ, salvation, resurrection - you know, any of that stuff that requires faith in something other than ourselves:
Do you know why these “progressive” Christians want to “progress” right through the tenets of Christianity into the grim world of neither-faith-nor-reason but self-actualizing instinct and “hopeful” feelings? Why they want Jesus with no Christ, God with a small g and all that? Can you take a guess? If you said “it is the logical culmination of baby-boomer narcissism and that generations’ tireless effort to deconstruct the universe and put itself at the center of all things” then ding, ding, ding! You win the daily double!
Aw, aren’t they just adorable, though, these baby boomers? The woman is frustrated because these damn Christians she is trying to enlighten won’t admit that all wonders and mysteries boil down to a “human project” of staggering opportunism. Thank small-g-not really-relevant-god that she and her generation have come along to enlighten us, over these last 30-40 years, and to tell us - for the eleventy-billionth time that everything that came before them is all wrong. She sounds frustrated, doesn’t she? “Look at us! No, not over there, look at us! STOP LOOKING AT GOD - look at us! At US!” This actually sounds like a church Obama could love: WE ARE THE GOD-LINGS WE’VE BEEN WAITING FOR! Now that these baby boomers are all so educated - so advanced beyond inferior preceding generations and minds - they can simply tear it all down and start from scratch, and they will make unto us a new church, one that embraces the secularist mentality and finds the sacred in whatever one chooses to find sacred. “Madonna on the cross in a red shirt? Hunky Jesus? Hey - that’s profoundly sacred if you need it to be!” This appears to be an effort to create a church that the state can endorse and live with - an amorphous blob of “quasi-churchiness” unto which almost anything at all may be assigned and found “holy.” I’m almost certain that the only non-negotiable, non-optional ritual will be liturgical dancing with pantomime. Progressivism can’t help itself. As Mother Mary Francis, PCC wrote in The Right to be Merry
I read this and think of Ignatius Cardinal Kung Pin Mei, who spent 30 years in Chinese prisons for refusing to abandon the Roman Catholic Church for the state-approved Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, which pretends to be what it is not. You probably have never heard of him, even though he is at least as heroic as Nelson Mandela - but if “progressive Christianity” has its way, he may become our patron - patron of The Remnant that will always, resolutely, keep on, no matter how torn and frayed. Meanwhile - don’t let this freak you out. Don’t be afraid of children-of-all-ages playing dress-up, or the pranks and guffaws of those who are taking the wide road and pretending it’s a martyrdom. We live in an interesting age, where the meaning of things - even of martyrdom - is being muddied up. Nothing to fret about - it’s only what Jesus promised us, after all. UPDATE: Someone reminds me of Siggy’s excellent comments from a while back:
Bingo. Ace has a ten point plan for the new church. http://theanchoressonline.com/2008/03/27/deconstructing-christianity-itself/trackback/ 28 Responses to “Deconstructing Christianity, Itself - UPDATED” |
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March 27th, 2008 at 11:40 am
[…] The Anchoress is appalled: Do you know why these “progressive” Christians want to “progress” right through the tenets of Christianity into the grim world of neither-faith-nor-reason but self-actualizing instinct and “hopeful” feelings? Why they want Jesus with no Christ, God with a small g and all that? Can you take a guess? […]
March 27th, 2008 at 11:56 am
I am not sure why this would be offensive to anyone. I mean clearly they are not a Christian church, but I think Christians should at least be glad that they are not pretending to be Christian. I don’t see anything here that would offend someone any more then a Synagogue or a Mosque would offend someone.
It is curious to me though that anyone could think that the solution toward the problem of lessened church attendence following a weaking of the message would be to weaken the message even further. While what this Church teaches may be good moral lessons and excellent guidlines on how to deal with other people in a positive fashion, that sort of thing can be found all over the place.
The message of Christ is profoundly different then that, and far more powerful.
March 27th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Dave, this minister was ordained into a church that still refers to itself as “Christian,”
FTA: “She is considered one of the bright, if unconventional, minds within the United Church, Canada’s largest Protestant Christian denomination. She holds a master of divinity degree from Queen’s University and was ordained in 1992. She founded and chairs the Toronto-based Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity.”
This still is a “Christian” church or it will be until she can get them to understand the “human project” and accept it.
As to the odd idea that diluting the message will make it more appetizing - that’s the same mind-set that says “if you don’t cater the mass to youth and give them the music and message they want to hear, they won’t come,” a mindset that is being disproved as the young people taking their places in the Catholic church these days are hungry to bring back the music and devotions to which they’d never been exposed.
It seems to me that the babyboomers are not aware that they have long-sinced ceased to be anything but the establishment, and that the things they are still reacting to are meaningless to the generation that never experienced them.
March 27th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Galatians 1:6-10 is pretty clear about stuff like this.
6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel– 7 which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! 9 As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned! 10 Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.
The next item on the Building and Grounds Committee agenda is to get some new signage out front that reflects their New Age state of mind.
March 27th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Flannery O’Connor traversed this ground with Hazel Motes’ Church Without Christ (or “The Church of Christ Without Christ”) in her novel Wise Blood, 50 years ago, I think.
The trouble with being trendy is that it’s already so “old hat.”
March 27th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Catholicism has survived for thousands of years, despite the all-too-human frailty of many of its leadership and adherents. Somehow in light of that, the silly behavior of such as Madonna doesn’t really distress me. It just nonsensical posturing of someone with little claim to intelligence or moral probity!
March 27th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Click here to see Gretta Vosper:
http://www.ucobserver.org/archives/feb05_church.shtml
March 27th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
What needs deconstructing here are the constructed idols of self-worship.
March 27th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
My mother was at Cardinal Kung’s “low mass” here in SF. She was so sad to see so few there. He is one of our heros. We’ve had other prisoners from Communist China at our dinner table over the years. My parents were/are active members of the Legion of Mary, one of the Chi-Coms most feared enemies. They fear the LofM because of the Roman Imperial language adopted by its founder. We have members of our parish who were incarcerated, tortured and enslaved for 25 years. They could never believe in this watered down, new-agey cr*p. They know what is true and are fiercely opposed to the diabolical CPCA in the PROC as well. We once had a phoney priest assigned us from the CPCA here in our SF parish. The outcry was so loud he lasted but a day. Who protested? The Chinese who themselves have felt the hatred and power of the regime in China. God bless them. I mention them as a type of antidote to these offensive ninnies that get their rocks off pretending to be warm and fuzzy Christians. May they be converted, but, in my heart I feel like saying, “Death to pretenders!” Reminds me of that awful new book, “Eat Pray Love” that I was given lately. I threw it down in disgust. False ecumenistic pap. I am one of the “Young people” that Anchoress speaks of, robbed of my own faith’s most precious and mysterious liturgies, truths and rituals. My generation is so SICK of those in their 50s and 60s who keep stuffing this 70s era garabage down our necks!! We’ve all begun searching out parishes that will courageously give us good music, great solemnity, some latin, Eucharistic Adoration, less feminism and some manly leadership. My 2 cents.
March 27th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
I was just reading Frank Turek at CrossExamined.org. He was cautioning how we are losing a high percentage of many of our youth once they get to college and are faced with atheism and the lure of the world. Many turn their backs on the faith because they begin to question the validity of what they have been taught in the church. He mentioned that often what is taught in our churches is based on emotion for after all, we are to love Him with all our souls. However, we are also instructed to love Him with all of our minds and we need to prepare our young people to know what they believe and have and be ready to give a reason for the hope that is within them. They need to know how weak the atheists’ arguments are based on logic and reasoning and science as well.
The comments about the Chi-Coms and their treatment of the cloisters, etc. has been the case when and wherever totalitarian rulers take over. Because Light and Goodness and Love are so much more powerful than Darkness and Evil and Hate, they must be eliminated at all costs. But somehow God finds His way regardless.
It also is obvious to me that one of the reasons Islam is making headway in Europe is due to the secularism and watered-down Christianity practiced there. As OBL would say, “People will follow the strong horse.”
March 27th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
Quote of the week…
“Do you know why these “progressive” Christians want to “progress” right through the tenets of Christianity into the grim world of neither-faith-nor-reason but self-actualizing instinct and “hopeful” feelings? Why they want Jesus with…
March 28th, 2008 at 12:01 am
[…] put! Via the Anchoress : “it is the logical culmination of baby-boomer narcissism and that generations’ tireless […]
March 28th, 2008 at 2:52 am
Ma’am, I usually love to read your posts, even when I disagree, but….
That second picture looks almost EXACTLY like a nightmare I had about a black mass. (yes, I do have B movie nightmares)
From the bits I could read, I’m guessing that’s the “chocolate Jesus”, but…*shudder* turn it upside down, and that’s the deadman from a nightmare.
I don’t see any beauty in it…sorry.
March 28th, 2008 at 7:43 am
At last! Intellectual honesty.
I believe Hemingway was here years ago. “Our nada, who art in nada…”
There is, alas, but one problem. Only through death does life come.
Until the seed dies, there is no new plant.
I believe Jesus said this.
What is desired is some one-sided transaction: eternal life without life.
So it is better, if you do not accept Jesus crucified and resurrected, to delete Him entirely from your language and vocabulary.
It does not really matter, as those who deny Him before men will in turn be denied on the Last Day. And that is NOT my problem. Each of us must give his own account to God.
Or, to put it another way, a faith which is not worth dying for is not worth living for. These proponents of a progressive faith must first show me some martyrs, some changed lives, some miracles of grace, some new understanding, some restored relationships, and so on.
If there are no saints, then what’s the point?
March 28th, 2008 at 8:02 am
[…] Here’s an interesting take from The Anchoress: […]
March 28th, 2008 at 8:36 am
The Rev. Vosper would fit in nicely with a church I came across Easter weekend in suburban Washington DC. Apparently the buildings and grounds committee have been busy at this church. Displayed prominently at the church were two signs:
The children didn’t have an Easter Egg Hunt but a spring egg hunt.
The Resurrection had been renamed, “the Rising Up.”
I never really understood the point of going to church or believing in God if you are not willing to humble yourself to something larger. If you see yourself as the center of it all why bother with church. Just go into the bathroom on Sunday morning and stare into the mirror for 45 minutes. That should cover it.
March 28th, 2008 at 10:44 am
There are those who have set themselves to the sad task of turning the wine into water. Thankfully they’ll never fully succeed.
March 28th, 2008 at 10:45 am
Wouldn’t a chocolate cross be… sacrelicious?
March 28th, 2008 at 11:55 am
The Gospel Of Nietzsche…
The Anchoress writes, “This actually sounds like a church Obama could love: WE ARE THE GOD-LINGS WEVE BEEN WAITING FOR!”: That triumphal barnburner of an Easter hymn, “Jesus Christ Has Risen Today Hallelujah,” this morning will rock the walls….
March 28th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Speaking of folks trying to be “progressive” about the timeless truths of the Christian faith…
My own church body, The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod has been rocked by a controversy of its own this past week, when a very popular issues-themed radio program, “Issues Etc.” from KFUO A.M. in St. Louis, was abruptly canceled on Holy Tuesday, accompanied by the firing of its host, Todd Wilken, an ordained Lutheran pastor and Jeff Schwarz, the program’s producer. A petition protesting this action was started and now over 5,000 people, from over twenty countries and almost thirty Christian denominations have signed it.
I am submitting a link to the article that came out in the Wall Street Journal today (March 28) that explains more.
This whole event has uncovered a controversy that has long been simmering beneath the surface, but is now out in the open for those outside our church body to see.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120667366412170875.html?mod=taste_primary_hs
March 28th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
I understand the consternation over diluting the Gospel message, but not the consternation over the newer music form. I don’t see how the newer music form in and of itself dilutes the Gospel message.
March 28th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
I guess she is going to change the name of her church to something like “Glorious Hopeity Church”.
March 28th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
A good friend recently received a divinity degree from a very liberal Methodist seminary. She told me that in the four years she spent there, Jesus Christ was essentially never mentioned. He certainly wasn’t a part of her graduation ceremony, which was attended by the local bishop. She also doesn’t believe Jesus came to atone for our sins. I’m afraid her education is representative of the state of liberal theological art. In fairness, she admits that her seminary is known as extremely liberal. Someone with her views probably would not be able to get a divinity degree from some other Methodist seminaries.
Personally, I think those who point out the negative correlation between liberal attitude and church attendance are on to something. Those churches that succumb to the egotheist temptation will soon find themselves empty. And I mean that theologically as well as physically.
March 30th, 2008 at 2:33 am
[…] – The Anchoress […]
March 30th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Hilaire Belloc understood and explained what was happening and what the outcome would be a full 70 years ago:
http://chronatlantis.blogspot.com/2008/03/belloc-religion-culture.html
March 31st, 2008 at 10:17 am
Egad. Just when I think there is no new depth reachable for narcissism, a whole group comes up with an inventive new twist!
For what it’s worth, “TAWOGFAT” looks uncomfortably like someone smashed some bad words together, making me reluctant to try to pronounce it as an acronym.
April 1st, 2008 at 7:22 am
[…] available. The first paragraph is at the link; the others were excerpted at The Anchoress, who got to the root of the problem (HT Sister […]
April 1st, 2008 at 11:45 am
[…] LOOK AT MEEEE! “Perpetually adolescent Madonna’s lifelong and recurrent cruci-fixations made me chortle […]