Do You Have the Guts to Follow Jesus?

Christianity is changing because Christendom is dying.

Europe became a post-Christian reality in the 20th century. America is poised to take that same path in the 21st century. This is not a lamentable thing but a good thing. Christendom, that unclean marriage of church and state, of the gospel with culture, has been tried and found lacking for over 1,700 years. Today we are farther removed in time from Jesus than Jesus was from Abraham. In fact I would suggest that Christianity has been in Exile for the past 1,800 years. Christendom is Christianity in Exile. The unholy relationship between the Prince of Peace and warrior culture has turned the Gospel of Peace into justification for war, empire and domination. In America, this alliance between retributive violence and justification of such has reached the same apex as we can find in Bernard of Clairvaux and the papacy of the Middle Ages.

Christendom is a paradigm, but it is a false paradigm, a pseudo-model of how those who follow Jesus are to live with one another and engage their surrounding cultures. When the gospel which once challenged violence and violent powers and principalities morphed into the sacrificial message of a vampiric deity, Christendom became the blood-letters for that God, conquering tribes, clans and nations with the sword in the name of God. The non-retributive Jesus, the Jesus who refused the sword, the Jesus who freely forgave sin, the Jesus who taught that Abba was only loving of all became the exclusive Prince of Darkness, damning the majority of humanity to an everlasting torture chamber. Thus Christendom justified itself in its domination and subjugation of any who would not conform.

Jesus refused the sword. The three great temptation narratives, first after the baptism, again at Caesarea Philippi and finally in Gethsemane all indicate that, for Jesus, the greatest risk he faced was the temptation to join a violent humanity in its retributive violence. On all three occasions Jesus refused the sword. This was never the Abba’s way.

We have learned all manner of twisted exegesis, we have concocted all sorts of theories of biblical inspiration or church authority, we have engaged in all manner of cheap apologetics to read Jesus’ story in order to justify our propensity for retribution. We create all manner of hypothetical situations (“What if someone broke into your house?”), we devise all sorts of moral scenarios (“What about the defenseless?”) in order to wiggle our way out of having to really take Jesus’ call to discipleship seriously.

Jesus called his followers to love their enemies. For 1,800 years we Christians have found ways to tame that admonition. We have over-spiritualized it or crushed it under Realpolitik. At every turn we have found ways around it because we simply cannot go through it. Oh, we claim God forgives us but we live in antagonism and bitterness with one another. Where is the forgiveness we as a people are called to display? Have we so long nursed at the breast of sacred violence that we can no longer see that we are called out of culture with its violent origins and violent maintenance schedules? Have we forgot that it is God’s business to vindicate us and all victims? Do we no longer believe in a God who raises the dead? Do we really think our space/time history is ultimate? When did we lose our capacity for an eschatological vision, the kind of vision Jesus had where all, from north, west, south and east would feast at God’s table? Can we not see Jesus supping with Caiaphas in the kingdom? Has our vision of God and God’s love become so myopic that we would rather retreat into our narrow theologies and little apologetic boxes than engage God in the real world where we are to be salt and light?

Anybody can follow a god of violence. We humans have been doing just that in a thousand variations since the dawn of our species. Anyone can pick up a sword and defend themselves, their home, their possessions. It doesn’t take courage to fight in a war. It takes courage to lay down one’s sword, forgive one’s enemy and trust that God will raise the dead. It takes courage to let go. “To save your life is to lose it, to let go of your life is to save it.” I didn’t say this. The ‘unrealistic’ prophet of Nazareth did.

Wake up!!!!!!!!!!

The warrior Jesus, the god who justifies war and violence, retribution and sacrifice is the god of The Matrix of Sacred Violence.  This god is an idol pure and simple. Why continue spilling blood to this impotent, worthless deity? Why not recognize that the True God has spilled his/her own blood, blood spilled by our hands and has not come back with a word of vengeance or retribution, but instead speaks a word of shalom and forgiveness?

Do you have the guts to follow Jesus? I will know by your comments. If you seek to ameliorate his command to put away the sword, if you throw out all sorts of hypotheticals, if you dance around the edges of this with some natural theology inspired morality, I will know you don’t have the guts to follow Jesus. He did say, the road was narrow and discipleship was not easy. If being a Christian seems or feels natural to you, and you have a god who requires blood, likes blood, and justifies the taking of life, then you need to reconsider whom you are truly following. There is an anti-Christ out there. That anti-Christ is not in the world but dwells firmly in the churches of Christendom.  That anti-Christ has its mega-churches, TV channels, praise bands, seminaries, bible colleges, bookstores and kitsch. For 1,800 years the anti-Christ has been the popular one in Christendom. Jesus, the Son of the Abba has never been popular. Those who want to be part of the in-crowd, who seek the validation of others, will easily follow this pseudo savior.

So the question you need to ask is this: On the day you stand before Jesus will he say he knew you? Or will he look at you and say “I never knew you. You didn’t have what it took to really follow me, to listen to my way of wisdom, to follow the path I took and invited you to take with me”?

Do you have the guts to follow Jesus?