I grew up in a Fundamentalist Christian world, an extended community of conservative middle-class families that took very seriously the indoctrination of its young. Searching my memories, I can’t remember a time (this is going back as far as my recollection can reach, to age 4 or 5) when I wasn’t immersed in bible stories and a deeply conservative worldview.
Much of this is horrifying to a young child: the existential terror of burning alive forever if you don’t please the Lord (which we were informed about before grade school); Old Testament events, intended to inspire awe, which actually introduce considerable epistemic confusion (and more than a little moral ambiguity) into a child’s emerging perception: Noah’s Flood; the Crossing of the Red Sea; the Ten Plagues. Just what growing young minds need!
I felt those terrors, and was even frightened by some of the illustrations in my Children’s Bible. But that’s not what really grabbed me: I learned early on that I was very much a New Testament kid.
I heard the stories of Jesus and his years among his people – feeding them, healing them, offering words of encouragement and inspiration everywhere he went: the Woman at the Well; Nicodemus; the Thief on the Next Cross. I was moved by the stories of how much it meant to people to be near him, the lengths they would go: Zaccheus; the Clothes-Grabbing Women; the Guy They Dropped Through a Roof.
And the parables – stories of forgiveness. Redemption. Gratitude. Human worth.
But what really grabbed me, as a young pre-teen, was that Sermon on the Mount.
This is what it’s all about, I realized. All of us are equal in God’s eyes; the poor are worthy; judging others is wrong!
And the biggies: Love your enemies! Hypocrisy is a sin! Turn the other cheek!
This, to me, wasn’t just a blueprint for a virtuous life; it was a blueprint for a virtuous world.
Carl Sagan himself, avowed atheist though he was, said through one of his characters that “the Sermon on the Mount is one of the greatest ethical statements in history.”
Yes.
Of course, when you’re a child in that time and place, it’s nearly impossible to parse the bible tales that comprise the Christian narrative within the deeply conservative worldview, with all its fiercely ingrained assumptions about human nature and societal norms. But when you’re 9, 10, 12 years old, you’re seeing more of the world. You begin to realize that there are other stories, other narratives – and that there are many worldviews beyond conservatism.
Thus, as I entered junior high school, and learned more about the nation I was born into, I learned that our government
Provides for the poor;
Offers medical care to the sick who cannot afford it;
Gives shelter to the homeless;
Extends mercy to the repentant;
Incorporates mechanisms to ensure social justice
I didn’t know it at the time, but I had tapped into the social gospel – the connection between the teachings of Christ and the social problems and issues that plague the world. Not just those above, but race... economic inequality... advocacy.
The United States is a Christian nation, I realized; our government treats people the way the New Testament says we should!
I reveled in this realization for a good long while. It was a discovery that brought me some long-sought comfort in a social world that had long held me in dread and discomfort. I felt that I could finally feel good about the world I lived in; its values finally came to life for me, overwhelming the disillusionment that had otherwise consumed me.
And then... I spoke up.
I raised this point in youth group meetings, and was immediately shouted down by my youth leaders and teachers.
No, no, I was told; that’s not the government’s job! It is the church’s responsibility to fulfill Christ’s commandments!
They pushed back, and pushed back hard; when the government did these things, it was using our money to do them, without our permission! And that’s not what God wants or intends!
But... render unto Caesar, anyone? And Caesar is okay with the social gospel? I just couldn’t wrap my mind around their resistance.
The more I questioned, the more I was shouted down. The idea is to feed the hungry and care for the sick, seek justice for the mistreated and call out hypocrisy in power – it's all right there in the red letters? Who cares who gets the credit for it?
Oh, and by the way: the church isn’t doing that job? It nibbles at the edges of it, at best? Poverty, medical assistance for the sick, and social justice take a back seat to our huge auditoriums, gymnasiums, and private schools?I would later learn, of course, that there were millions of Christians who were seeing the same thing I saw – that not all Christians are conservative Evangelicals. In fact, most Christians are not conservative Evangelicals. I just happened to be born into that particular tribe.
Most Christians living in the world today don’t put country over Christ. They don’t quibble over how the food gets into the stomach of the child living in poverty, or whether the doctor treating the indigent elderly has been baptized or not. That outrage seems to be unique to Fundamentalists, who have never been able to parse church and state and have no motivation to ever do so; their ends will always be more political than spiritual.
The puzzles of my childhood are long since solved, at least for me. Within the world I grew up in, I imagine they never will be. But I’m comforted by the fact that even though I now stand far apart, I’m far from alone; many are those who see loving agency within the human community as a calling transcendent above the mundane concerns of economic theories and social class scuffles. And I’ve always believed that if Christ was around now, he’d see the same. It’s what he was trying to say all along.
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