Spot On - sdrawkcaB

As our nation becomes more and more Pharisaical (and thus, according to Jesus, less and less holy) it occurs to me that the Evangelical Church has got pretty much the whole Christianity thing backwards. It was the Pharisees who had hundreds of rules about how to conduct your life, controlling everything from diet to defecation. I'm sure you've heard of them, pretty much everything is an abomination to the Lord, from eating shellfish to wearing clothes made out of different types of cloth. Of course the Pharisees had improved the system by interpreting the Mosaic laws to solidify their power. Have someone who disagrees with you? No problem, there's sure to be one of the thousands of rules he has broken. You only need two witnesses against a person and you can pretty much get him stoned (or, under Roman law when stoning was illegal, jailed). In any case, the rules gave the Pharisees pretty much total control of the people.

Enter Jesus. Jesus gives the Pharisees the finger in some pretty substantial ways. He breaks many of the Mosaic laws (works on the Sabbath, hangs out with prostitutes, touches lepers, doesn't wash his hands ceremonially, etc.). In fact, it's pretty easy to see from the New Testament that Jesus seemed to enjoy breaking the Mosaic Law and the additions to it made by the Pharisees.

Of course the worst crime Jesus committed was challenging the Pharisees' power, which is why they ultimately killed him. And his challenge was rather direct. Here is Jesus, forgiving a woman caught in adultery! Here he is telling the people the Kingdom of God is in them! Here he is preaching to the Samaritans (Samaritans! The dirty dogs!) that God doesn't care if you worship in Jerusalem! The entire Sermon on the Mount is one long rant against the Pharisees and their religion.

Now the Pharisees were religious men, and by religious I don't mean that they loved God. Religious people always love themselves first and God second. In fact, I've argued before that religious people are the true enemies of God. Give me one repentant sinner over a thousand self-righteous religious people any day. At least, I think that's how Jesus would phrase it if he were into our lingo. Religious people are all about behavior, because they think that your behavior determines if you love God or not. In fact, even though the Evangelical Church goes on and on about being saved by grace through faith, this is just a lie. People in the Evangelical Church are considered saved if their behavior matches up with what the church thinks is godly behavior. If it were truly grace through faith, then people who sin and yet profess to trust Christ would be saved. But they're not. In fact, the behaviors that are acceptable for Christians have continued to shrink. I've heard several Evangelical Christians say that you cannot be a Christian and a liberal! You cannot be a Christian and listen to rock music! You cannot be a Christian and drink alcohol! How is this grace? It's not. People in the Evangelical church are not saved by grace, they are saved by their behavior.

But everyone screws up. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone has been selfish and proud and petty and cruel. Everyone lies. Everyone hurts someone. The most self-righteous preacher standing in his crystal cathedral has a heart as dark as a tomb. And that's all of us. I could tell you story after story of the sins of ministers and people who, on the outside, pretended to be holy and righteous. Every one of us is a twisted fuck.

Now this poses a problem, since as I said above, no one is perfect. So if you are saved by your behavior yet your behavior is imperfect, how do you cope? Easy, you lie. The Evangelical Church is not made up of pure and holy people, it's made up of people who've learned to lie about who they are and what they do. They live double lives. They are whitewashed tombs, just like Jesus said. Outside they are clean and white and pure but inside they are full of rotting corpses.

My favorite example is sexual purity, because it's the one sin the Evangelical Church harps on and yet the one they fail at most spectacularly. Somehow they have gotten it into their heads that premarital sex is a sin (even though it is mentioned nowhere in the bible as being a sin--don't believe me? look for yourself). Fortunately, the Evangelical Church operates through lies. So you have all these Evangelical women "saving" themselves for marriage and claiming to be virgins, even though they will have oral and anal sex and pretty much anything but vaginal penetration all the time. But it's ok, they are virgins! What the hell? How is that sexual purity in any way? It's not. It's a joke.

Or take racism, which is clearly a sin in the Bible (don't believe me? check out what happens to Miriam when Moses marries a black woman). Of course no Evangelical would actually ever claim to be racist, but they'll use terms like "tunnel digger" and "towel head" and even the N-word. But they're not racist, that's just a phrase. They love those people. And then you look at their congregations and they are whiter than snow! Huh! How could that happen? Must just be random chance!

The gospel has two parts which correspond to what Jesus told the people who came to him: "You are forgiven" and "Sin no more". When someone came to Jesus he forgave them and then he told them to sin no more. He did not tell them they would be forgiven if they stopped sinning. They were forgiven based on their trust in him. This is the gospel, not the self-serving bullshit excreted out by the Evangelical Church.

We're all sick and broken but when we come to Jesus he says, "You are forgiven. Sin no more." And if we fail to heed his suggestion and we come to him again he says the same thing. Jesus knows that we cannot be perfect, so to withhold salvation from all those who are not perfect is to withhold it from the entire human race. The beautiful freedom of the true gospel is that we don't have to pretend to be something we're not. The gospel does not create liars and hypocrites, the church does. The gospel creates people who over time become more and more sensitive to the way their actions harm others, and seek forgiveness. They become quicker to forgive others as well.

But I actually don't mind that the Pharisees of our time are preaching a false gospel, because as they continue to warp and twist the bible for their own power, it becomes obvious to more and more people that they do not represent God. Ask anyone the defining characteristic of a Christian and you'll hear "hypocrite" quite often. Why? Because it's true. As the Evangelical Church becomes more irrelevant in people's lives, they will continue to seek ways (though political power) to enforce their beliefs on people. This will cause more and more people to reject them, which is very good news. The saddest religions are those that need government support to continue. True religion doesn't even notice the government. God is so much more.

Comments

[cspew]

It's funny to me that the evangelical church preaches that all sins are equal in God's eyes, but then proceeds to elevate some over others. The sexual sins are a prime example. The reason is obvious - we're all sexual beings and most of us have a sex drive. Control the sex drive and you control the person - it comes back to behaviour control!

Let me play the role of evangelical Christian for a moment, Rob, and say: What do you mean premarital sex is OK? The Bible clearly speaks out against "fornication".

I'm not sure I followed your racism paragraph. Were you saying that the Bible is racist or that BEING racist is a sin according to the Bible? I assume the latter. I may have to dissent on your examples slightly: I think most evangelical preachers would _not_ use racial slurs and don't view themselves as racist. ie: they don't dislike people of other races... but they don't love them as much as they love their own race! They don't do as much as they can and they don't preach against racism - especially the more suble parts of racism. If it's a white, suburban pastor - how much is their church going to do socially and politically to further the cause of racial equality? It's likely not much - especially the political side. That would mean having political views that were "liberal"... and Karl Rove has decreed unto us that that is unholy. (and he IS God's messenger, right?). Welfare? Social services? After school programs? What for? Why should MY money go to fund things for those drug-dealing thugs! In fact, let's pass laws aimed at fining them for the way they dress!

The best part of this post is the view of Jesus wrt the Religious leadership. Take a step back and look at what Jesus really stood for. (One of these days, I'll gather a book list to get you started if you haven't been exposed to this). When you look at Jesus from this perspective, it's hard not to see him as a revolutionary. As a rebel. As a free thinker. As someone who just loved, period. And that's the essence of Christianity: Love one another. There's a lot of other stuff that's crap, that's been added at one time or another by man. You have to filter it out.

Preach on, brother Rob!

[Rob]

About fornication, there are a couple issues. First, the bible says a lot of things are sins that we simply ignore because we don't want to consider them sins. Specifically I'm thinking of Acts 15's directive to eat kosher meat. No Christian I know does this, but it's as strong a directive as "do not fornicate". Gluttony and envy are normally considered evidence of good character in this country. So if the Evangelicals are allowed to pick and choose the sins they avoid, then so the hell can I.

Second, I think it would be strange to import a sexual command from a culture where women were placed into arranged marriages as early as 13 or 14 into a culture where we "choose" our spouses and don't get married until well into the 30s. In fact, I'd like to see all these people who go on about Christian marriage actually participate in one. It would be difficult, however. First, when your are 13 or 14 as a girl, your parents set you up with someone who _pays money_ to buy you from them. Then, as a woman, you are considered chattel in the marriage, slightly above the children. You are, in every legal respect, a piece of property. That is what "submission" in the bible is all aobut. I for one am glad that I don't have a Christian marriage, and that pretty much no one in America does. It was a sick institution that needed to die.

It's crazy to have people who get married in their 30s stay celibate until then. It makes no sense. God designed the biology, blame him if you must. But I'd rather have a daughter who was honest about her sexual relationships so that they were above the board and discussable then one of those Evangelical girls who puts out in the back of the bar but tells everyone she's a virgin. There's some dysfunction for you.

So, to sum up, the Evangelicals aren't being "biblical" in the true sense, so I don't see why I need to be either. Freedom, baby, that's the only answer.