Richard’s Daily Meditations

In recent elections one would have thought that homosexuality and
abortion were the new litmus tests of Christianity. Where did this come
from? They never were the criteria of proper membership for the first
2000 years, but reflect very recent culture wars instead! And largely
from people who think of themselves as  ¢â‚¬Å“traditionalists ¢â‚¬ ! The
fundamentals were already resolved in the early Apostles ¢â‚¬â„¢ Creed and
Nicene Creed. Note that none of the core beliefs are about morality at
all. The Creeds are more mystical, cosmological, and about aligning our
lives inside of a huge sacred story. When you lose the mystical level,
you always become moralistic as a cheap substitute.

Jesus is clearly much more concerned about issues of pride, injustice,
hypocrisy, blindness, and what I have often called  ¢â‚¬Å“The Three Ps, ¢â‚¬ 
or power, prestige, and possessions, which are probably 95% of his
written teaching. We conveniently ignore this 95% to concentrate on a
morality that usually has to do with human embodiment. That ¢â‚¬â„¢s where
people get righteous, judgemental, and upset, for some reason. The body
seems to be where we carry our sense of shame and inferiority, and
early-stage religion has never gotten much beyond these  ¢â‚¬Å“pelvic ¢â‚¬ 
issues. As Jesus put it,  ¢â‚¬Å“You ignore the weightier matters of the
law ¢â‚¬”justice, mercy, and good faith. . . . [And instead] you strain out
gnats and swallow camels ¢â‚¬  (Matthew 23:23-24 [1]). We worry about what
people are doing in bed much more than making sure everybody has a bed
to begin with. There certainly is a need for a life-giving sexual
morality, but one could question whether Christian nations have found it
yet.

[1]:  http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew%2023:23-24&version=NIV;MSG;KJV

Christianity will regain its moral authority when it starts emphasizing
social sin in equal measure with individual (read  ¢â‚¬Å“body-based ¢â‚¬ ) sin
and weave them both into a seamless garment of love and truth.

Adapted from Spiral of Violence: The World, the Flesh, and the Devil
(CD, DVD, MP3)
http://store.cacradicalgrace.org/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=NV-C-05&Category_Code=&Store_Code=CFAAC