The mariner was watching “Book Talk” on CSPAN2 recently. The author, Brad Gregory, presented his book The Unintentional Reformation. By his own admission, the book is a hard read. It is about the unintentional ramifications that arose when the established church (Holy Roman Catholic and Anglican) was no longer the universal keeper and interpreter of morality, ethics, God and daily behavior.

The state protected the right of people to choose their faith. Consequently, the “church” was no longer keeper and interpreter of common good. Each denomination could define common good from its own perspective.

This meant that individuals also could choose not to abide by any definition of the common good. Thus arose secularism, a new movement uncommitted to any definition of common good – the unintentional reformation.

Gregory defined the behavior of today’s masses as not having religion. He defined religion as a natural element in life that provides personal ethics and moral direction. When the reformation occurred, many did not look for a religious definition of morality and there was no universal interpreter of common good to advise them. Further, there were many definitions of common good that, by default, meant none was the true common good.

Gregory went on to say that the collapse of common good has led to extremism, fragmentation in government, greed and abuse in businesses and has left stranded lives. Religion is not present. What interested the mariner is the author’s separation of “religion” from organized churches. His only contention was that there must be a keeper and interpreter of the common good that is abided by the masses. He did not say who the keeper should be today, only that the Reformation unintentionally unleashed secularism, a movement that has no keeper of common good.

The Unintentional Reformation is an elaborate, intellectual accounting of the influence of commerce, politics, science and demographics that over time led to the Reformation. The book won the ISI Henry and Anne Paolucci Award for Excellence.  However, it is a history of the Reformation, not a guide for today’s troubles. Who is the keeper of the common good today? The Government? HA! We must ponder this a bit.

The mariner has written of the decline of pew-based faith. Many have left the church to join the secularists – even as they continue to sit in a pew. This may not mean that many have abandoned the common good that their church provided for them. However, one is hard pressed to believe the moral behavior of the new secularist will be sustained.

Many moralistic individuals believe there is a common good. Some are noteworthy and even influence large groups of people. What comes to mind first are the very rich who organize charitable projects. The rich operate outside the reach of governments and provide moralistic services to those in need. The mariner thinks of Warren Buffet, Bill Clinton, Bill Gates and a host of show business personalities. Are the rich the keepers of religion in our lives? Economically, the rich are a problem in our economy, leaving many people poorer for the sake of the rich.

The Roman Catholic and Protestant Christian movement certainly is far from dead, though it shows signs of abiding secularism even as it proposes inadequate reinforcement of the common good. Organized religion provides significant funding for numerous charitable programs similar to the rich. The organized church is a major influence regarding moral behavior in society but, as Gregory indicated, it is not the only interpreter of morality, ethics, God and daily behavior. What is needed to unify the common good is a single source with the authority to impose the common good on today’s culture. That includes all elements: personal behavior, corporations, communities, and government.

Therein lays the dilemma. Once Henry the Eighth was able to break away from the Roman Catholic Church and once the Reformation broke the chains of church authority in favor of individual rights, government had the upper hand. Governments allow religious organizations to exist but take from them the authority to interpret and enforce the common good. Ironically, the concept of individual rights is a linchpin in secularism.

The mariner leaves the situation as it is. He has no solution. There may be no way to enforce common good when individuals have individual rights. He agrees with Gregory that secularism was an unintended result of the Reformation.

Ancient Mariner

The mariner had no takers on the difference between God and non theists who believe in a totally predetermined universe designed to be what it is and nothing more. The non theist idea is that everything is created with a purpose that completes the grand plan of the universe. Those who believe this way are called teleologists. There are many groups who don’t know they are teleologists and have composed parallel atheistic arguments against the presence of a God.

What separates Christians from teleologists is free will. A second element of Christianity is that there is a responsive relationship between each of us and with a God that loves us. A third element is accountability to love God and love our neighbors. These responsibilities are the two Great Commandments.

A nice metaphor is a wooded Indian versus a real Indian. The wooden Indian is a part of the grand design, completed. A real Indian has a life to live, choices to be made, to love, and to relate to a God that responds to him.

If the Conundrum was too obscure, the mariner apologizes.

Ancient mariner

It seems the mariner has stepped on a yellow jacket nest with his examination of the church and its lack of commitment to the principles espoused in the Gospels. He does not intend to quote the Sermon on the Mount and the many parables. He will not extrapolate the overarching principle of faith derived from the crucifixion. The mariner welcomes everyone to revisit their Christian faith by reading the Gospels for themselves. In this post, he focuses on individual church congregations. Connectional institutions will be addressed at another time. In preparation for connectional institutions, watch the movies “The Shoes of the Fisherman” starring Anthony Quinn (1968) and “Saving Grace” starring Tom Conti (1986).

Irrefutable points:

• Jesus requires his followers to be humble. The second Great Commandment requires Christians to treat others as they would want others to treat them. There are no exceptions to this commandment.
• Jesus requires that we must sell all we have and follow him. This is where religion, in general, conflicts with sociological arguments about culture. Two thousand years later, we are closer to being the Romans than the abused population in which Jesus lived. What priorities in lifestyle must each of us sacrifice to follow Jesus?
• Jesus never intended the distraction caused by organized pursuit of worldly manifestations such as church buildings. Alternatively, Jesus wanted his followers to emulate the good Samaritan, caring for others at every opportunity – a personal responsibility, not an institutional one.

These three points are not debatable. They are virtual iterations of the word of Jesus.

Given these Christian requirements, one must consider the value of modern cultural distractions. In an earlier post in the Religion category (All Things Evolve – Even Christianity), the mariner makes the case that a Christian indeed is confronted by different conditions and asks how Christianity can be presented to the current culture. Cultural presentation and integration of Christianity must change to be effective. However, these changes cannot deviate from the three points cited earlier. Taken from the earlier post:

“We must live the word of Jesus. Words like forgiveness, kindness, goodness, acceptance, constitute a way of life. A Christian, no matter the historical account, is someone who is devoted to the happiness and wellbeing of others – no matter their style of life or their ethnicity. This is the message that must not fade in the midst of these troublesome days.”

The mariner has been in many denominational, Roman Catholic, and Greek Orthodox churches. With only one or two exceptions, the church is made of the finest materials appropriate to the economic neighborhood and built with as many square feet as affordable. These edifices are groomed as if they were the Golden Calf. These edifices have first priority in the consumption of contributions – that is, first after the professional staff is paid. Somewhere, way down in the budget, a few dollars are committed to the wellbeing of others.

How can this inverted priority be ignored? The Christian must ask, “What is the purpose of this building?” Most will answer, “It is a Holy place where God and Jesus are worshipped.” To what end, the mariner may ask. Another response is, “It is necessary to educate and attract the community to the Christian faith.” Yet so many churches are shrinking – except the TV evangelists, who appeal to a very broad audience of evangelical believers and couch Christians.

Interestingly, many individuals who are not affiliated with a church can be found working as volunteers in services for the poor or Habitat for Humanity or building schools in impoverished areas of the world or traveling to disaster areas to aid the local community. How does the church attract these purveyors of goodness? More importantly, how does the church emulate these purveyors of goodness?

Research into psychological and sociological reasons suggests that there are benefits to being part of a congregation:

• Companionship – The mariner has witnessed the power of  the church when providing a positive and comforting environment for many  who otherwise would have no opportunity to share life with others.
• Comfort – The promise of eternal salvation satisfies  the need to be accepted through faith that life does not end; that one’s  life has value no matter its station or circumstance. This is a legitimate  goal among all people.
• Status – Belonging to a group such as a congregation bestows a  personal sense of importance, even as a non-participatory member.
• Limited responsibility is the tendency for members to feel less responsible for their actions when surrounded by others who are behaving in a similar manner. Any church nominating committee can attest to the resistance of individuals to step into additional responsibility.

Limited responsibility also relates to activist behavior. A member finds it rewarding to perform within the church membership but stepping out into the community at a one-to-one level is not a desired experience.

The mariner acknowledges these benefits. However, if the major purpose, the major workload, the major investment is not to carry out the word of Jesus, which requires personal sacrifice of time, assets, and lifestyle for the benefit of those in need, then the church membership is not carrying its load as a representative of the Christian faith or in the manner that Jesus intended.

If the personal act of goodness to others is the reason each member comes together to magnify that goodness, then a church is a valid extension of the spirit of Jesus. Church members must see the light and become the light. To quote Peter Böhler, an ordained Moravian, “…preach faith until you have it and then because you have it, you will preach faith.” To paraphrase, do good until you want to do good and then because you want to do good, you will do good. Faith is doing good. Nothing more.

Ancient Mariner

The mariner has had feedback critical of his opinion about churches, that they are not a force that does good work as Jesus would want.

The mariner mentioned that a percentage of contribution to the church is spent on missions. However, it is the last priority and smallest percentage. The reader is challenged to review their church budget (atheist or theist). The mariner calculates that for every one thousand dollars in the budget, twenty dollars is deliberately allocated to missions. The dollar percentage demonstrates the distraction of a church from the force to do good works. Nevertheless, this train of thought is not the correct mindset to define goodness. One does not measure goodness with budgets or dollars.

For those who insist on an institutional approach to goodness, the best example of a “church” is a free shelter for the homeless or a free soup kitchen. Another example of institution is relief efforts in areas of tragedy or great want, where volunteers drop what they are doing and work hand in hand with the unfortunate. The dollar contributions spent on these examples of churches is a lot more than twenty dollars out of every thousand; it may be the inverse. Bringing relief to those in need is the first priority. Institutional and logistic spending is allocated only because it is necessary to provide goodness. Goodness is the motivation; personal involvement and sacrifice demonstrate that motivation.

The mariner advocates these institutional efforts. Doing good, as Pope Francis suggests, is what it is all about. The mariner thinks, however, that goodness rests with an individual, not an institution. There is nothing wrong with many individuals coming together for the common good, if institutional structure is a minimized distraction. The one-on-one human experience is the root of goodness. A church can be one person. That is how it was with Jesus.

The mariner was at a church meeting a while ago. Two hours were spent on organization with barely a hint of interest in doing good. It occurred to him that a better use of the two hours would be to organize a flash mob so that in a moment’s notice, everyone in the room spontaneously would come to the aid of a specific person or group of people in the local area. Not much organization needed; goodness is the first priority.

In the last years of the mariner’s duties as a pastor, he had a growing feeling that so much of what he did was irrelevant to society. He finally left the ministry and took a job as a probation officer. Unlike the tasks in the church, his new tasks required him to spend time in poor neighborhoods. He talked with people on a one-to-one basis. He had a conscious awareness that these people were victims. They were victims of being born beneath the crush of a social system where money is king.

Some were able to stabilize their lives with manual labor jobs or even open a very small business. Most, however, had been damaged by family life, repeated failure in efforts to find an identity, and lack of goodness in the culture that entrapped them. Many turned to illicit activity for money and a sense of independence. These folks were his new congregation.

It was serendipitous that his supervisor was an unusual person. His supervisor was polite but always on task. Occasionally, the mariner would have lunch with him. This meant walking the streets of the red light district looking for homeless street dwellers. When he came upon one of these individuals, he would invite them to have lunch with him in one of the local eateries. It was obvious, however, that the individual gained a lot more than a meal. He received compassion – a rare commodity indeed.

The supervisor had the opinion that our job was driven by empathy, not by reinforcement. It is true that some would not respond and eventually return to the courts for violating parole or probation. However, the mariner learned from his supervisor how important it is to keep empathy at the forefront of one’s awareness.

One cannot perform goodness without empathy.

One cannot perform goodness when the institution supersedes goodness.

Pope Francis said faith is doing good. Nothing more.

Ancient Mariner

The mariner read the Bing homepage this morning to discover an interesting link. It was about the emergence of atheist churches (is that an oxymoron? Etymology says “church” means ‘of the Lord’). If you are interested, visit

http://news.msn.com/us/atheist-mega-churches-take-root-across-us-world?ocid=ansnews11

Follow with the comments of Pope Francis:

http://news.msn.com/world/atheists-are-good-if-they-do-good-pope-francis-says?ocid=msnnws

The mariner likes Pope Francis.

The mariner had his days as a Methodist pastor. He never understood why a church had to be the center of the “faith,” receive the lion’s share of contributions, and be the greatest distraction from doing good. Now the atheists, who have no religion or theistic magnet to unite them, want to build churches. The mariner has a blind spot about churches. He often expresses his confusion by saying “What is more important – paying the church electric bill or buying supper for the unfortunate mother with children who lives four miles away and otherwise will have no supper?”

Sadly, theistic or atheistic, the mother goes unfed.

The mariner wrote a lesson booklet for adult study groups. It is based on the Gospels Matthew and Luke (for the purist, the Q Source). To put the booklet into a few words, Jesus never said build churches [The fundamentalist may claim that Jesus said Peter was proclaimed the rock upon which the church will stand; “church,” however, is a Greek word derived from kiriakon, later evolving into Middle English chirce via Old German kirche. The Greeks were famous for building temples with a moment’s notice]. Jesus’ life was spent entirely among those abused by the Romans and judgmental Pharisees. Pope Francis must have read the mariner’s booklet…

In an earlier post, the mariner recommended the new book, Zealot, the Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, by Reza Aslan. The book is written deliberately without Biblical sources even though Aslan is a name of renown among religious institutions. It depicts the horrible life of most Jews during the Roman occupation. No one had the money or dare the circumstances to build a church – if that idea existed in those Jewish times.

It is presumed that the atheists are building churches to avoid feeding unfortunate mothers and their children.

Pope Francis is correct: faith is doing good. Nothing more.

This commentary has led to thoughts about why institutionalization is so important. Readers will have to wait for another post.

Ancient Mariner

The mariner has been watching the dismantling of the political, economic and social mores that began back in the seventies and, in each category, are moving faster and faster toward something we do not understand but will be a change in the status of an American life. Christianity does not escape this change in culture.

There are many books on the market attempting to redefine Christianity for the modern age. The best narrative, both historically and religiously, is Zealot, The life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan. Though many still hold to the mythical interpretation of the Jesus narrative, modern history, common sense and the pressures of a modern society 2,100 years distant from the time of Jesus require a better understanding of both the man and the message – which may not be synonymous.

The New Testament, particularly Matthew and Luke, provide a template of how we must behave as Christians. Yet historians, respected in their field, suggest that the Gospels were written after Jesus lived and were designed to support the spiritual message of Jesus rather than to account specifically for his words and actions while Jesus was alive.

Historians say that the time in which Jesus lived the population was immersed in a belief that the apocalypse was about to happen. Many prophets were preaching about preparedness for this event. Some, like Jesus, did the same but went a step further to challenge the divinity of the Roman Emperor, which ultimately led to death on the cross.

We are in similar times today. Our government is dysfunctional; more and more Americans are forced into poverty; the American dream that anyone can achieve whatever they desire has faded away; many who propose to speak in the name of Christianity (Tea Party) attack the relationship between the lessons of the Sermon on the Mount and daily life.

Christians today are challenged: Is the New Testament our word of faith? Is the Jesus of history depicted by artists and religious writers through the ages the real Jesus? More importantly, is the spiritual and moral guidance of the New Testament valid? No doubt, there is substantive truth in these writings. The New Testament has not been replaced by any stretch of the imagination. However, how shall we present it? How shall we, as devoted Christians, defend the meaningfulness of our faith? These are the questions at hand as our society experiences significant change.

We must live the word of Jesus. Words like forgiveness, kindness, goodness, acceptance, constitute a way of life. A Christian, no matter the historical account, is someone who is devoted to the happiness and wellbeing of others – no matter their style of life or their ethnicity. This is the message that must not fade in the midst of these troublesome days.

Ancient Mariner

The last post mentioned that there are two themes that occupy the writers and speakers in current religious publishing. The first theme, a fresh look at the historical experience of Jesus, is addressed in the last post. Today the mariner will investigate the preoccupation with the Religious Right as a political movement and the concern expressed about the increasing secularism of most Christians.

The mariner investigated many conservative, evangelical and fundamentalist websites searching for a core dynamic that these movements can share. In general, the websites were territorial about minor interpretations or tenets. In short, the conservative side of Christianity does not have a cohesive doctrine.

These websites were true religious websites. Government politics representing the  conservative or “religious right” were of a different ilk and focused on public policy, party politics – salted with a collection of moral issues and a lot of character assassination. Neither set of websites had any concern for the circumstances of mainstream Christian practice.

The political religious websites were a mix of conservative Christian advocacy heavily dosed with public issues. If the reader watches the news at all, they will be familiar with these issues: guns; abortion; eliminate discretionary government programs (all of them from health care to school lunch programs, Head Start, PBS, Planned Parenthood, SNAP (food stamps and other assistance programs, unemployment insurance); any extension of regulations of any kind; a major cut in government services, more or less keeping the military, central treasury and only in about half the websites, income taxes.

It is obvious why serious religious writers are looking closely at the claim of religiosity in the religious right movement.

There is not room in this post to capture a great deal of Gospel scripture that counters the misanthropic politics of the religious right but just a few references will demonstrate the massive gap between the religious right movement and the Christian positions of Jesus:

The parable of the Good Samaritan

The two great commandments

“If you have fed them, you have fed me”

“You shall love God above all things” (even your family and your money).

This could go on for pages but this is enough to expose antithetical positions between Jesus and the religious right. The mariner’s favorite Gospel is Matthew. It is an easy read and will be very clear about the principles of Jesus, none of which associate with the religious right. As to the public issues like guns and abortion, there may be a moral point, legally or religiously, but the violent and uncaring attack in an effort to obliterate these issues easily dismisses any moral intent.

What obfuscates the study of the religious right is the Tea Parties (there is more than one). Tea Party members are in the same room as the religious right because both groups are conservative. A closer look, sometimes, can determine a Tea Party person because of the absence of religious morality in their rhetoric. To the right of the Tea Party and to the left of the religious right is the libertarian – a cross breed of conservative government minimalism with a progressive approach to anything that pokes into one’s personal freedom.

Mix these three groups with the professional Republicans in the House of Representatives and it is no wonder that Speaker Boehner has no control over irrational legislation.

Ideologically, the right wing groups are noisy and disruptive but a minority incapable of streamlined organization that can overtake the middle of American religious culture. After doing this research, the mariner felt the most bothersome aspect of it all was the solidarity of the right behind the two-headed coin of nationalism and autocracy. New Testament Christianity is not to be seen.

A broader issue on religious book lists is the invasion of secularism into the religious practices of mainstream denominations. The mariner has written about this subject in other posts. (See Following Jesus Around, Is Christianity Still Christianity? Evolution of Faith, and Who is God?) Lest the mariner’s evaluation of the religious right makes the mainstream Christian self-righteous, secularism has decayed the organized church more than termites can destroy a rotten log.

It may be a good idea for every Christian to read the Gospel Matthew then ask one’s self, by sitting in a pew on Sunday, am I praying in public as the Pharisees did? If I skipped the church service and went into the poorest neighborhood to do what I could to make a life better, would Jesus skip the service and come with me?

Secularism is a failed pew-based culture. Mainstream Christians need to get their hands dirty doing God’s work as Jesus instructed. Find God’s grace through another person’s life – not your own.

Ancient Mariner

Religious historians, theologians and ministers have been unusually busy in the past couple of years. Religious books, magazine articles, television interviews, and sermons have investigated Jesus in terms of what historians have recently learned about the time of Jesus. New insights have been gained about the cultural conflict between the Romans and the Israelites, the class system that was in place in Israel at the time of Jesus – in other words, what was society like during the time of the ministry of Jesus and what role did he play as a man living in this society?

Religious writers also have focused on the failure of modern Christians to adhere to the mission Jesus commands of us. The targets of these writers are the selective policies of the religious right and Christian believers generally; there is heightened interest in this cultural phenomenon because American culture has an increasingly harsh class system just as Jesus experienced during his ministry. Further, while not a military occupation, the nation is run by the wealthy rather than the citizens – again, something that confronted Jesus during his life and ministry. Finally, there is an apocalyptic undertone in the United States and other countries as social, political, religious and global experiences approach a point of chaos.

It is the growing similarity between the times of Jesus and our times today that provides energy for this new wave of religious introspection. Jesus and his message have been revisited many times in history. The power of Jesus’ life and faith must be reinterpreted to relate to the changes that occur in society. Otherwise, his divine insights lose their meaning.

A good example among writers examining the role of Jesus historically is ‘Zealot,’ by Reza Aslan, a respected religious writer.  This book, just published, has received good reviews. In his book, Aslan highlights the aspect of Jesus as an activist who fought the abuses of the Romans and the rigid, self-righteous class system that existed among the Jews themselves. Large numbers of the population were despised, oppressed, and powerless. Jesus behaved as a zealot, fighting the injustices openly and without regard for his own safety.

Aslan’s book clarifies the context of the role Jesus played in a time of chaos. Knowing that Jesus was zealous and defending the discarded people of Israel speaks to us today with more substance and a better understanding of the Gospel message. For example, in those passages of the Gospels where the Pharisees visit Jesus, these are not intellectual discussions. They are confrontations by Judean authorities who did not approve of his work and his belief in love as the primary force among human beings. This belief in love disregarded the religious, political and military rule that controlled Israel at that time. “The first shall be last and the last shall be first” evokes more pathos for Jesus and the literal, human meaning of his words when we understand his visible and outspoken rebellion against an unfair society. As Jesus grew more popular, his life was increasingly at risk.

We can relate to this role in modern times. To mention a few: Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Frederick Douglass, Nelson Mandela. What these names have in common with Jesus (though there is no intent to consider them equal to Jesus) is that they were zealots fighting against injustice for the displaced and oppressed people of their times.

The added disregard for the Jewish view of history, God, and the Old Testament rule fueled the flames of the authorities even more. Jesus brought to Earth a loving God, who did not judge, who did not control social history, and who bestowed divine importance equally on every human being – the first shall be last and the last shall be first.

The next post will discuss the focus on the forgotten message of the Gospels by today’s political and social environment.

Ancient Mariner