APRIL 28 2018
HAS THE GOOD NEWS BECOME FAKE NEWS?
The Greek word for THE GOOD NEWS is Eu-Angelos, from which we now have Evangel as well as Evangelism, the term to designate the act of bringing the Gospel.
It is my opinion that in the last few decades the essence of the GOOD NEWS has changed: under the influence of Gnosticism it has become a personal affair, relating solely to ‘me being born again.’ Many hymns not only laud going to heaven – another Gnostic heresy – but also emphasize that only we humans, are ‘washed in the blood.’ People simply don’t realize that Jesus’ blood and flesh was first hammered into the tree and that his blood first dripped into the earth, both blessing trees and earth forever.
That the major part of American Christianity has sided with Trump, a man who glorifies in being a ‘sinner’ is proof positive that American Christianity has ceased to be “Christian”, as Harold Bloom conclusively demonstrated in his book, THE AMERICAN RELIGION.
The American religion sees earth as evil, and denies Jesus’ humanity, in effect canceling the core message of the Bible. In other words, American Christianity in almost all of its denominational expressions has become a fake religion.
Where do I base this on?
Bonhoeffer in his essay “Thy Kingdom Come”, writes, “Christ does not lead us in a religious flight from this world to other worlds beyond (he means heaven): rather he gives us back to the earth as its loyal children. ….We have fallen into secularism, and by secularism I mean PIOUS, CHRISTIAN SECULARISM, not the godlessness of atheism or cultural bolshevism, but the Christian renunciation of God as the Lord of THE EARTH.”
Eighty percent of white Evangelicals who voted for Trump see the earth as evil. That’s why Trump rescinded Obama’s environmental rules, and appointed Pruitt as his environmental secretary, a man who denies Climate Change, and encourages the use of carbon fuels.
J.H. Bavinck, Bonhoeffer’s contemporary, comes to the same conclusion. In his book, BETWEEN THE BEGINNING AND THE END, ‘A Radical Kingdom Vision’, he writes,
“It is God’s intent to unite all fractured parts of his creation into one over¬arching harmony. There is no such thing as individual salvation. All sal¬vation is of necessity universal. The goal of our life can never be that we personally may enjoy God and be saved in him. The goal of our life can only be that we again become part of the wider context of the King¬dom of God, where all things are again unified under the one and only all wise will of him who lives and rules for ever.”
Both Bonhoeffer and Bavinck signal a radical shift from the generally accepted definition of SALVATION. Accepting this total package means adhering to a faith-life completely and drastically and fundamentally different from the generally accepted definition, basically signaling that the current idea of THE GOOD NEWS essentially is FAKE NEWS.
There’s also another factor.
Compared to the conditions when the Bible was written, we Westerners are the richest ever by far, having 100 energy slaves at our beck and call 24/7. This makes Jesus’ pronouncement about living so luxuriously quite scary. He said, “Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God”. When the disciples heard this they were greatly astonished and asked, “Who then can be saved?” (Luke 18: 24-25).
This rhetorical question, “Who then can be saved”, is found in all three Synoptic Gospels, and is today the burning question facing all churches, because our lifestyle is the highest ever in history.
This question is especially relevant for us: basically we no longer need God: we are too rich (taking highly polluting cruises is just one example). We also are too technically independent.
So then what is THE NEW GOOD NEWS today?
We live in different times. Everything is up for grabs. Our entire outlook of life is changing. Anything to do with carbon fuels – and that means 99.9 percent of what we consume – is now tainted, pushing us squarely toward extinction.
Last week I read an article by Dr. David Page, a terrestrial geologist with decades of experience. In ARCTIC NEWS he writes, “The dramatic explosion of Siberian permafrost mounds over the last four years has received worldwide media attention, igniting speculations of a methane “time-bomb” and a climatic threshold crossed.”
Once these methane mounds explode – and this can happen any day – he gives humanity a couple of years, a verdict echoed by Dr. Guy McPherson (Sam Canara).
Today, Anno 2018, reminds me of John the Baptizer, whose singular message was “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” Both Bonhoeffer and Bavinck state, based on the Bible, that not heaven but the renewed Garden of Eden is the Kingdom to come.
This means that churches have to make a radical shift, from Fake News to the Real NEW News, from individual redemption to the planetary, from personal to global, from heaven to earth.
That this involves an almost impossible U-turn is evident from Jesus’ own words, “Many are called, and few are chosen”, found in Matthew 22: 14. Luke 18: 8 confirms this, “However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” The sad fact is that, just as ALL governments aim for Economic Growth which is the cause of Climate Change, all churches preach Heaven, at the detriment of Earth.
So…
Is the Old Testament here different than the New? Do both Jews and Christians differ on this point? Not really. The Jews still are the COVENANT people, still possess the real message.
The Christian viewpoint can be captured in one paragraph: All of Life is Religion, and since God made the earth, The Earth is Holy; life is of one piece, not a split between heaven and earth, not sacred apart from secular, not nature here and grace there: no dualism at all, because ‘EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED TO EVERYTHING ELSE.’
The Jewish faith.
This past week I read an essay by a Jewish Rabbi. Here’s what he, in part, had to say:
“Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, the great twentieth-century theoretician of Jewish law (Halakhah) who died twenty-five years ago, addressed (some religious) questions within the context of his own tradition—though his answers are relevant to people of all faiths.
“On the one hand, explains Rabbi Soloveitchik, Judaism wants people to live full, natural lives, and the commandments pertaining to the physical side of existence—such as festive meals, conjugal relations, or offering first fruits—force people to involve themselves in the natural world. In this manner, one who follows the Halakhah can avoid the temptation of a purely ethereal, otherworldly spirituality, which leads to a dualistic affirmation of the spirit and rejection of the world.”
My comment, “That is my type of language: cuddle up to the earth, our natural habitat forever.”
“On the other hand, Halakhah demands that one actively sanctify one’s physical existence. This sanctification is attained through the observance of mitzvot (commandments), which affect every facet of a person’s worldly existence, from the moment of awakening until the moment of falling asleep.”
There again, my comment, “Sanctification means making holy: all of life is holy.”
“These mitzvot sanctify not just one’s personality (by asserting control over one’s physical drives), but one’s very actions and physicality. By infusing every area of life with meaning and purpose, the individual avoids a divided existence. The all-encompassing demands of the mitzvoth ensure that one will be conscious of God at all times. When one serves God by all means at one’s disposal, one consecrates one’s entire life to God, making one’s service of God integrated and complete.”
My comment, “Isn’t that beautiful!? It basically says that all of life is religion and must honor God.”
“What are the dangers of a religious posture that ignores the arena of one’s natural worldly existence, concentrating exclusively on religious feeling and contemplation? Rabbi Soloveitchik’s objections to such an approach can be grouped under five headings: This form of religiosity is otherworldly, unrealistic, purely subjective, overly individualistic, and undemocratic. Judaism, by contrast, believes that the world is “very good,” and frowns upon monasticism.
“With its pervasive psychological realism, Halakhah has recognized that ordinary mortals need to be jogged out of their spiritual lethargy, and that unless they are prodded to specific action, many will be quite content to neglect the religious life completely. Habitual observance ingrains moral and religious sensibility into the very fiber of the personality. It strengthens the inner power of spirit and, at a deeper level human emotion is profoundly affected by the very process of externalization. …
“The fact that it is more likely that actions will influence emotions than the reverse explains why Halakhah devotes its primary attention to actions. If religion does not provide man with an objective framework of action containing specific divine norms, it will—at best—be vague and transient. At worst, it will lead to the most horrible excesses.
“Rabbi Soloveitchik believed that it is not only undesirable for one to try to escape one’s corporeality, it is also impossible. Any ideology based on the premise that a human can become a purely spiritual creature is doomed to failure. By focusing solely on the person’s contemplative-spiritual side, it fails to acknowledge the strength of his or her inner drives and passions. Seeking to do the impossible, it fails to do what is necessary, namely, to restrain and channel one’s drives and use them positively. Freedom from the authority of specific norms, and from a sense of coercion in following them, leads to moral anarchy and finally degeneracy. By becoming concrete, objective, and specific, religion becomes strong enough to affect one’s entire life, to withstand temptation, to endure regardless of the individual’s mood, and to survive from generation to generation.
“A religion that focuses solely on inner experience may lead to an “extravagant religious individualism” that is not geared toward the formation of a community.”
My comment again: Going to heaven is based on pure individualism. This rabbi totally concurs with Bonhoeffer and Bavinck that formation of community is the aim of religion, as Bavinck unequivocally states, “There is no such thing as individual salvation. All sal¬vation is of necessity universal. The goal of our life can never be that we personally may enjoy God and be saved in him. The goal of our life can only be that we again become part of the wider context of the King¬dom of God, where all things are again unified under the one and only all wise will of him who lives and rules for ever.
And as Rabbi Soloveitchik notes in The Halakhic Mind, “the force and effectiveness of religion grows commensurately with increasing participation of the entire society in the religious drama.
“Thus, in a normative religion such as Judaism, all individuals are equally able to approach God. A religion lacking this common basis of connection to God becomes stratified; as Rabbi Soloveitchik writes, it “gives rise to ecclesiastical tyranny, religious aristocracies, and charismatic personalities. And there is nothing that the Halakhah loathes and despises as much as the idea of cultic mediation or the choosing of individuals, on the basis of supernatural considerations, to be intercessors for the community.”
My comment: ”I sense here a hint to the Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches, with its historic hierarchy, which is not found in the Bible.”
HAS THE GOOD NEWS BECOME FAKE NEWS?
Yes, the traditional message of the church that Jesus saves our souls, and that we, upon death, go to heaven, is still the core of the Christian message in all denominations. It totally ignores God’s earth which he called ‘good’ repeatedly. The earth, as God’s Work of ART, is an extension of the Divine and as such is holy.
The REAL good news – which I call THE NEW-OLD NEWS is that God, the Earth and Humanity belong together, which will find its perfection in the New Creation to come: it is NEW, because the church strayed away from it: it is OLD because the Old Testament mentioned it repeatedly.
The NEW-OLD NEWS truth is foundational for both the Hebrew and the Christian Faith.