Vegetable Frittata and Pesto Toast

This week I was sent a list of questions about faith from my friend Carolyn. I've included them here.

1. Do you think your faith is special?

2. Do you believe Jesus rising from the dead is what makes the christian faith unique?

3. Do you believe the reverences about restoration are about this world or leaving this world?

4. Do you think people today perceive Christians as trying to serve or forcefully try to rule?

5. Have you ever put into words the implications that Jesus' resurrection has for you personally?

6. If we are loved exactly how we are, what is the motivation for change?

7. If others could watch you spend your time and money, who you love, and how you love. Do you think people would see Jesus rose from the dead?

I urge you to sit on these questions and reflect on what they mean for you, and potentially write down or talk to someone about one of these questions, and what it means for our world in our current context.

Specifically the fourth and sixth questions made me pause and I have taken the last few days to reflect on them.

I think historically Christianity was used just as much if not more for control and power of territory and people. The merger of church and state created power disparities where the church was the source of religion and law and order. People relied on their local church for religious guidance, and the territorial government relied on the graces of the Pope or other religious figures to stay in power. This was seen in the Holy Roman Empire and then carried over into the religious justification of monarchical dictatorships that dominated Europe and carried over through colonization and capitalism to the rest of the world. While European countries sought to bring God as they explored the world, that was a farce. European rulers and wealthy traders justified colonialism, genocide, and resource extraction through religion, saying they were bringing faith to inferior people and elevating them. In fact, they were and still are destroying people's lives and the environment through the evolution of mercantilism into capitalism.

To think that Jesus sought to elevate the poor, sick, female, and other minorities in the face of a dominant government and religious establishment to then where the roman catholic church and succeeding denominations became a dominant government that approved of the Inquisition, Crusades, stood silent when the Holocaust occurred etc. Does the institutionalization of the church, a community of faith and love, into a denomination, a political entity, spell the end of liberation and ultimate freedom from the world's trappings?

Circling back to serving or ruling, I don't have an answer. It was proven through the Stanford Prison Experiments that power corrupts, to even the most egalitarian of us. It is hard to see denominations as serving when lgbtqia+ people still cannot be married or be in ordained ministry in many denominations, when women are relegated to the pews, or when certain denominations are 93% white. How can you say you serve when discrimination and white supremacy are ingrained in the denominations? I distance the words church and denomination because I believe that churches, these faith communities, serve. However, in our times it is very hard for me to see denominations serving, when it seems all they are focused on are budgets, bureaucracy, power conflicts and if they split, who gets what. Yet, institutions connect churches around the world, help on the issues of advocacy and education, and other social justice issues. It is up to those in denominations to rebuild their laws and norms to serve rather than to rule.

To the sixth question, "If we are loved exactly how we are, what is the motivation for change?"

If Jesus loves us for who we are, then he loves Black bodies, Black minds, Black culture, and Black People. Jesus loves LGBTQIA+ people. Jesus loves immigrants and refugees. Jesus loves the poor and unhoused. Jesus loves the intersectionality of these issues and strives for justice for them specifically, hence the 99 versus 1 sheep parable. Jesus loves what humanity doesn't. So what is the motivation to change or what needs to change? In my mind, our society needs to change; the way we govern ourselves and each other, our economic system, our political system, our agricultural and education systems. In all of these systems, sin prevails through racism, homophobia, sexism, xenophobia, and classism.

I hope if you read this far, you'll think on what I had to say. It is perfectly fine to disagree on politics, economics, and my answers, but "agreeing to disagree" on human rights and justice is unacceptable. I also hope that these questions stir something in you, to make you think and question what we are all taught and normalized in.

As Always,

He Climbs Mountains