The Face of Scheming, Judgmental
Pharaseeism
The Pharisees are always with us and
always well-respected members of "the church."
Dear
John,
Yesterday,
I wrote: "There is no reason to think Conservative Christianity has a lock
on Truth. Nor is there reason to think that a "literal"
understanding of Scripture is better than a richly contextualized understanding
of Scripture. Indeed, Reason demonstrates that contextualized understanding is
always better - and truer - than "literal"
understanding. Because Conservatives "feel" more comfortable
aligning themselves with "absolute Righteousness," they champion
conservative Christianity despite the fact that Reason (and, often, Church
teaching) are against them. Furthermore, if Jesus' relationship with Pharisees
is any indication, it is precisely the "good, upstanding churchgoers"
who are most likely to come under withering attack by The Son of God. Notably, The
Son of God also assures us that whores and tax collectors will
enter The Kingdom of God before priests do." http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+23&version=NIV
Today,
I am heartened by E.J. Dionne's Washington Post column about the brewing
"rebellion" among some Catholic bishops who think their outspoken
conservative colleagues are damaging the church by making American Catholicism
a subset of Christian Fundamentalism.
Any
attempt to align with "absolute righteousness" impresses me as hubris
and, in its own way, beyond the pale of Christianity at least as Jesus defined
his Christian mission.
Consider
Matthew 9:11-13
11 When
the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat
with tax collectors and sinners?”
In
Jesus' time, tax collectors were considered scumbag traitors, despicable
turncoats who worked for Rome's Occupying Army to extort money from Jews.
This
money was then used to pay for the Roman Occupation itself.
Eventually,
this occupation resulted in the destruction of The Temple, an event
more psychologically catastrophic for Jews than the destruction of the Twin
Towers was for Americans.
Although
The World Trade Center was the chief locus-and-symbol of Capitalism, the
one-and-only Temple was the unique focal point of all Jewish
liturgical practice.
For
Jesus to eat with tax collectors was like Obama sitting down to negotiate
with al Qaeda and Taliban without putting a
single pre-condition in place. http://www.allaboutjesuschrist.org/tax-collector-faq.htm
I am
constantly flabbergasted by conservative Christianity's ignorance of biblical
context.
Since
conservatives - be they religious or political - are "existentially"
devoted to Impossibly Pure Principles, they ignore context since,
consciously or unconsciously, they sense political advantage in the dictum:
"Every text without a context is a pretext."
By
stonewalling context (a requisite behavior among biblical
"literalists") conservative Christians arrogate to themselves carte
blanche.
And
with that carte blanche, they fulfill their hearts' desire of
oppressing people while suppressing Truth.
Pax on
both houses,
Alan
PS A
linchpin component of conservative Christianity is the belief that
"Pharisees" comprised a sect that was limited in time and space to
ancient Israel. In fact, "Pharisees" represent a religious impulse
that is alive and well in every generation, including our own. http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+23&version=NIV
There is a healthy struggle brewing among the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops. A previously silent group, upset over conservative colleagues defining the church’s public posture and eagerly picking fights with President Obama, has had enough.
The headlines this week were about lawsuits brought by 43 Catholic organizations, including 13 dioceses, to overturn regulations issued by the Obama administration that require insurance plans to cover contraception under the new health-care law. But the other side of this news was also significant: The vast majority of the nation’s 195 dioceses did not go to court.
430
Comments
It turns out that many bishops, notably the church leadership in California, saw the litigation as premature. They are upset that the lawsuits were brought without a broader discussion among the entire membership of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and wanted to delay action until the conference’s June meeting.
Until now, bishops who believed that their leadership was aligning the institutional church too closely with the political right had voiced their doubts internally. While the more moderate and liberal bishops kept their qualms out of public view, conservative bishops have been outspoken in condemning the Obama administration and pushing a “Fortnight for Freedom” campaign aimed at highlighting “threats to religious freedom, both at home and abroad.”
But in recent months, a series of events — among them the Vatican’s rebuke of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, encouraged by right-wing U.S. bishops — have angered more progressive Catholics and led to talk among the disgruntled faithful of the need for a “Catholic spring” to challenge the hierarchy’s shift to the right.
Bishop Stephen E. Blaire of Stockton, Calif., broke the silence on his side Tuesday in aninterview with Kevin Clarke of the Jesuit magazine America. Blaire expressed concern that some groups “very far to the right” are turning the controversy over the contraception rules into “an anti-Obama campaign.”
“I think there are different groups that are trying to co-opt this and make it into [a] political issue, and that’s why we need to have a deeper discussion as bishops,” he said. “I think our rhetoric has to be that of bishops of the church who are seeking to be faithful to the Gospel, that our one concern is that we make sure the church is free to carry out her mission as given to her by Christ, and that remains our focus.”
Clarke also paraphrased Blaire as believing that “the bishops lose their support when the conflict is seen as too political.”
Blaire’s words were diplomatic. But in a letter to the national bishops conference that has not been released publicly, lawyers for California’s bishops said the lawsuits would be “imprudent” and “ill-advised.” The letter was not answered by the national bishops group before the suits were announced.
Already, there are reports that some bishops will play down or largely ignore the Fortnight for Freedom campaign, scheduled for June 21 to July 4, in their own dioceses. These bishops fear that it has become enmeshed in Republican election-year politics and see many of its chief promoters, notably Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore, as too strident.
The irony in the current acrimony is that Catholics were broadly united in January across political lines in opposing the Department of Health and Human Services’ initial rules on contraception because they exempted only a narrow category of religious institutions from the mandate.
Facing this challenge, the president fashioned a compromise under which employees of Catholic organizations such as hospitals and social service agencies would still have access to contraceptive services but the religious entities would not have to pay for them. This compromise was accepted by most progressive Catholics, though many of them still favor rewriting the underlying regulations to acknowledge the religious character of the church’s welfare and educational work.
But where the progressives favor pursuing further negotiations with the administration, the conservative bishops have acted as if it never made any concessions at all. Significantly, Blaire identified with the conciliatory approach. As Clarke wrote, “Bishop Blaire believes discussions with the Obama administration toward a resolution of the dispute could be fruitful even as alternative remedies are explored.”
For too long, the Catholic Church’s stance on public issues has been defined by the outspokenness of its most conservative bishops and the reticence of moderate and progressive prelates. Signs that this might finally be changing are encouraging for the church, and for American politics.
