{"id":20674,"date":"2021-10-18T10:10:03","date_gmt":"2021-10-18T14:10:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=20674"},"modified":"2021-10-18T10:22:11","modified_gmt":"2021-10-18T14:22:11","slug":"20674","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=20674","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/DuZPOVFcFJ4\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.cmail20.com\/ei\/d\/6D\/A4F\/D3F\/072032\/csfinal\/October_CM_ChristianityandEmpire-9900000000079e3c.png\" alt=\"Image Credit: Barbara Holmes, Untitled 13 (detail), 2021, photograph, United States.\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Week Forty-Two: Christianity and Empire<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Jesus as Central Reference Point<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The first of the Center for Action and Contemplation\u2019s Eight Core Principles is that \u201cThe teaching of Jesus is our central reference point.\u201d Affirming Jesus as central provides Fr. Richard and all of us with a confidence that comes from the Gospel. Richard writes:&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Without the assurance of Jesus\u2019 teaching and example, I would not have the courage or the confidence to say what I say. How can I trust that things like nonviolence, the path of descent, simplicity of life, forgiveness and healing, the preference for the poor, and radical grace itself are as important as they are, unless Jesus also said so? This discernment is made even harder, however, by the fact that the actual Jesus agenda is so rarely emphasized in most Christian churches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In her autobiography, Dorothy Day (1897\u20131980) paraphrased theologian Romano Guardini by lamenting, \u201cthe Church is the Cross on which Christ was crucified. . . .\u201d [1] Doesn\u2019t that hurt? And yet, maybe it\u2019s true. In many ways, the institutional church does not seem to believe its own Gospel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It wasn\u2019t always this way, but starting in 313 CE, Christianity gradually became the imperial religion of the Roman Empire. It was mostly top-down and hierarchical for the next 1700 years. As the \u201cimperial mind\u201d took over, religion had less to do with Jesus\u2019 teachings on nonviolence, inclusivity, forgiveness, and simplicity, and instead became fully complicit in the world of domination, power, war, and greed itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Lay theologian and educator Verna Dozier&nbsp;<\/em>(1917\u20132006)&nbsp;<em>highlights some of the significant shifts that took place when Christianity became an imperial religion:&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is hard for us to understand what happened to the people of God under Constantine. Surely the church got a breathing space from persecution. . . . Constantine dreamed of restoring the ancient glory of the empire, and he believed that could be best achieved through Christianity. Constantine himself was not changed; the church was. It became the imperial church. Christian worship began to be influenced by imperial protocol. Incense, the sign of respect for the emperor, began to appear in Christian churches. Ministers began dressing in more luxurious garments, processions and choirs developed, and eventually the congregation came to have a less active role in the worship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>More important than any of this, however, was the kind of theology that developed. The gospel of good news to the poor now saw riches and pomp as signs of divine favor. The coming kingdom of God was no longer a fundamental theme. In the view of Eusebius [c. 260\u2013c. 340], the father of church history, the plan of God had been fulfilled in Constantine and his successors. Beyond the present political order, all that Christians can hope for is their own personal transference into the heavenly kingdom. [2]\u00a0<em>[DM Team: CAC teacher Brian McLaren calls this version of Christianity an <strong>\u201cevacuation plan for the next world.\u201d]<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>This week\u2019s meditations highlight how we lost the essence of Jesus\u2019 message when the church aligned with empire\u2014and the painful results that followed.&nbsp;<\/em><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Jesus and the Empire<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>On his podcast \u201cAnother Name for Every Thing,\u201d Fr. Richard discussed with co-hosts Paul Swanson and Brie Stoner what he sees as the \u201ctrajectory\u201d of the Jesus movement and how Jesus lived a simple life of non-cooperation with the empire of his day.&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Paul:<\/strong>&nbsp;Richard, can you help us understand how the original spirit of the Jesus movement kind of lost its momentum as it got institutionalized [and the church colluded with the empire]? How did we lose that ability to speak truth to power and to empire in such a way?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Richard:<\/strong>\u00a0It\u2019s possible to trace the movement of Christianity from its earliest days until now. In Israel, <strong>Jesus and the early \u201cchurch\u201d offered people an experience; it moved to Greece, and it became a philosophy. When it moved to Rome and Constantinople, it became organized religion. Then it spread to Europe, and it became a culture. Finally, it moved to North America and became a business.<\/strong> This isn\u2019t much of an exaggeration, if it\u2019s an exaggeration at all. The original desire or need for a \u201cJesus\u201d experience was lost, and not even possible for most people. Experience, philosophy, organized religion, culture, business\u2014in each of those permutations and iterations, Christianity was seen as above criticism. It simply was<em>\u00a0the<\/em>\u00a0religion,\u00a0<em>the<\/em>\u00a0philosophy,\u00a0<em>the<\/em>\u00a0culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Those are the big historical reasons that we look to different places for our authority. We gave it to emperors and kings and presidents instead of the Gospel, pretending Jesus was Lord but we didn\u2019t really mean it. Now, I know it\u2019s easy to be cynical, to look at the disastrous effects of Christianity\u2019s complicity with empire and want to give up on the whole endeavor, but I also want to proclaim that the flow of grace is a truly wonderful thing. Even inside of each of those iterations, misguided as they were\u2014and we still are today\u2014humble, loving people emerged\u2014in every one of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Brie:<\/strong>&nbsp;At the end of the day, I think we\u2019re all longing to really live this out. And there\u2019s a cost to wanting to live into this type of prophetic imagination that Jesus is showing us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Richard:<\/strong>\u00a0I think if we try to communicate what Jesus\u2019 social justice teaching is, we won\u2019t find a highly rarefied explanation of justice theories, and so forth. <strong>The way to do justice is to live simply, to not cooperate with consumerism, with militarism, with all the games that have us trapped.<\/strong> Jesus just does it differently, ignoring unjust systems and building up a better system by his teaching to his disciples. His name for the better system was the <strong>kingdom of God or the reign of God.<\/strong> <strong>The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better<\/strong>. He\u2019s showing us \u201cWe\u2019re just going to do it better.<strong> Let\u2019s not be anti-anything. Let\u2019s be\u00a0<\/strong><em><strong>for<\/strong><\/em><strong>\u00a0something: for life, and for universal love.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"253\" src=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/image-3-500x253.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-20675\" srcset=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/image-3-500x253.png 500w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/image-3-300x152.png 300w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/image-3-768x389.png 768w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/image-3.png 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Week Forty-Two: Christianity and Empire Jesus as Central Reference Point The first of the Center for Action and Contemplation\u2019s Eight Core Principles is that \u201cThe teaching of Jesus is our central reference point.\u201d Affirming Jesus as central provides Fr. Richard and all of us with a confidence that comes from the Gospel. Richard writes:&nbsp; Without [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20674"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20674"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20678,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20674\/revisions\/20678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}