Christian idolatry

I believe Christianity has made an idol of Jesus Christ. When most Christians pray, they do not distinguish between Jesus and the highest value of the universe, what we call God. Idolatry substitutes an image of God for God, and this describes the worship and belief of most Christians. Serious theology does not teach that God is the same as Jesus or that God is just a great, great, great man, but can anybody tell the difference when most Christians are praying?

We can relate to God in a personal way—I do it regularly—but we must know that God is not a mere humanlike individual. I like what New Testament scholar S. Sandra Schneiders says,

God is our father and God is not our father; God is our mother and God is not our mother. If we forget the “is not,” then we create an idol—that is, we make God into the image of a creature.

This idolatry is what Christianity allows in its prayers. It's not what Jesus of Nazareth wanted.


February 10, 2011.
Last evening someone called to thank me for my letter in the National Catholic Reporter. I hadn’t read as far as the letters in the February 4th issue and had forgotten that I wrote it. Upon reading it, I decided it serves well as my confession of faith. Because it's not available at NCRonline, I include parts here and invite readers to see if they, like the caller, believe as I do.

Unless Christians can transcend literal interpretations of our myths and symbols, we will continue to collide with other ways of imagining the spiritual realm and eventually become obsolete.
I do not believe Jesus is uniquely divine or that the God-image “Jesus Christ” is better than God-images in other religions. At Mass I don’t recite the Creed because I don’t believe it literally and, to preserve my integrity, I need to make an outward sign of that. As I watch others in church mouth the words, I pick out those who probably understand them symbolically as I do.

The Incarnation does not refer uniquely and exclusively to one man named Jesus; it refers to all humans as well as to the entire universe. The spiritual master Jesus talked about the reign of God, the realm of Spirit, not an exclusive kingdom ruled by a lord. Each of us is incarnated—spirit becoming flesh or spiritual soul living within a body. The Incarnation is about Spirit over, underneath, within, and through the physical universe; it is not about worshiping a certain man.


Christian idolatry January 30, 2012
It took guts to write this title. I was surprised to find the title in my old posts. Amazing.
A friend asked me if I remember when I started thinking that Jesus is not God.

As a child I sought closeness to God, never to Jesus, because Jesus was just a man. In a vague way I knew that God was infinitely greater than the man Jesus. This was not a clear thought; I simply didn’t pray to Jesus.
A college friend told me I used to say in college, "God is not just a man!" Fr. Jerome Theisen (later Abbot Theisen) taught us theology in our senior year and introduced us to historical-critical research on the Bible. That started my serious questioning.

A few years after college I left the church and tried being an atheist, but I noticed that anything about religion or Catholics held intense interest for me. In the ‘70s I read Teilhard de Chardin and Jung, who fed me delicious and wholesome spiritual food, whetting my appetite for more.

In 1980 I joined Al-Anon and its concept of the Higher Power opened a new vista of revelation. Out flew atheism, which never had satisfied my spiritual yearnings, but my brief sojourn in atheism gives me understanding and sympathy for atheists, most of whom reject religion out of a spiritual sensibility.

After 1980 I read fiercely in women's theology and liberation theology. By the time I landed in the School of Theology in 1986 (obviously arranged by my Higher Power, but that’s another story), I had a pretty good idea of Christian myth and everything else I've been articulating since then. The work of articulating is hard, not so much the realizations—they come unbidden.

Giving up the god Jesus was no big deal for me, but I saw others struggle with it. I value the confession of one, who said that a theologian told her very few Catholic theologians believe Jesus is God.

One reason for the religious ferment in our Christian culture is growing realization that Jesus is not God. It could soften the blow to see Jesus as a God-image and a symbol of Divinity. He has become a mythic image who, indeed, can lead us to God.
But we should be aware that much Christian language leads to idolatry, which substitutes an idol for God—the inexpressible reality that is more than any particular image or idea.

February 6

My "Christian idolatry" post generated many reactions, almost all positive. Next time, my reply to a person disturbed by it. This time, a positive response that expresses the feelings of many Catholics and other mainstream Christians I meet. Jean gives permission to quote her.

I think I have been wanting to find out that exact information about you for a long time.  It was, "Wow!  That is what I have been wondering!"  You managed to be very succinct in your answer, and that is not an easy task given the subject matter.

It is very hard for me to admit that I don't think Jesus is God.  That seems like going against the very essence of Christianity.  I try to believe in the Trinity and yet it is like believing in three gods.  I so admire Jesus the man and I do believe he is in heaven on an elevated plane. (I better check your blog to see what you have to say about heaven.)  My husband and I go to Mass just about every Sunday.  We have a church and a pastor which we are comfortable with most of the time.  We consider ourselves "cafeteria Catholics."   

Although I love your book I have never been able to definitively say "Jesus is not God."  When I pray, however, it is to God the Father/Mother most of the time.  Since there are so many gospel stories of Jesus the healer I often think of this as I pray for healing for someone or myself. 

Your faith journey was meticulously researched.  I have allowed mine to remain inconclusive.  This way I can attend Mass while knowing that I believe women should be priests and also hold on to my pro-choice stance.   I do admire your intellect, your courage and your fervor.  I am so glad that your blog will be made into a book.

                        Jean

Jean speaks for thoughtful Christians who in their maturity abandon childish beliefs but don’t abandon God or even their religion (although many do that too). They don’t join the ranks of atheists because their religious training, despite its teaching of incredible myths, fills a need, and they realize that not all religious talk is nonsense. A deeper Truth, a spiritual Presence abides in the innermost recess of religious myth.

They continue as cafeteria Catholics or, I suppose, cafeteria Lutherans, Episcopalians, Methodists, etc. but church talk leaves their questions unanswered.  These are the people for whom I write; they have a need I try to fill. There are theologians who can answer their questions but the official church suppresses such voices.

I suggested to Jean that admitting our true beliefs seems like gays coming out. She replied,

That's funny!  You are right, it is like coming out of the closet.

A lesbian to whom I once said this, agreed that, in our culture, a Catholic coming out to disavow belief in Jesus’ uniquely divine status could be more difficult than for gay people to come out.

Next time: more follow-up to “Christian idolatry.” 

February 16

I write this to a former instructor at the School of Theology who is sorry I call myself Catholic but don’t relate to Jesus as God.

Dear _____, To say I don't believe Jesus is God does not adequately explain my belief. From p. 4 of God Is Not Three Guys in the Sky:

       I do not regard Jesus of Nazareth as essentially or structurally more divine than the rest of creation. . . . Divinity resided in Jesus as it does in all human persons—and squirrels and rocks and thistles and the entire universe . . .

So I disagree slightly with biblical scholar Robert Funk, who stated,

            We should give Jesus a demotion. It is no longer credible to think of Jesus as divine. Jesus' divinity goes together with the old theistic way of thinking about God.

I do believe Jesus is divine, but I am also an atheist in the sense that I do not worship an external God-image. God is not an individual alongside other individuals. To worship such an individual is the “theistic way” to which Funk refers. Buddhists also are atheists in this sense and, although he would never have claimed the title “atheist,” so was Catholic theologian Karl Rahner, because this esteemed 20th century thinker stated that God is not an individual alongside the other individuals in the universe.

Typical Christian teaching promotes the idea that God is an individual. I saw this in the Sunday Visitor:

            One of the truths that reason can discover is that God is a person, and the central claim of the Bible is that this person has not remained utterly hidden but has, indeed, spoken.

Rahner would disagree, and so do I. What Catholics are forced to hear and recite at Mass reinforces the idea that God is merely a humanlike person or set of persons—three guys in the sky.

At some phase in my spiritual quest—it might have been at the School of Theology—someone told us about Rahner’s statement. Immediately it rang in me, and later I saw that it could unite atheists with spiritual seekers, especially science-loving thinkers.

            Later I found Rahner’s full explication of the insight in his Foundations of Christian Faith, but being Rahner, he is difficult to understand.

             The mysterious and the incomprehensible . . . can never be defined by being distinguished from something else. For that would be to objectify it, to understand it as one object among other objects, and to define it conceptually.

            Indeed, we must express it as something distinct from everything else . . . God is the absolute reality, the original ground and the ultimate term of transcendence. This is the element of truth in pantheism. . . .

            [God is not] one individual object alongside others.

So then, what or who is God? God is nothing, the nothing out of which come all things. Hindus and Buddhists speak about the Vastness, the Void. Westerners talk about Mind or Consciousness.

I know. It’s hard to think about such abstractions. The simple human impulse is to just worship someone and let it go at that. And just obey religious authority without figuring things out for ourselves. And worshipping Jesus comes so naturally to Christians; all our God-talk directs us to it.

This last disturbs me greatly. I understand that religion teachers cannot explain the insights of Karl Rahner to people in the pews, but there’s no excuse for church authority forcing people to recite words that train them to believe falsehoods. As I argue in my Sermon to priests, prayers to Lord/Father/He/Him/His train minds to accept as normal the unequal treatment of the sexes. Indirectly it promotes sex abuse by making the subordination of females seem right and proper.

The man Jesus was turned into a mythic Jesus, a god, an external object I cannot worship, but I revere the extraordinary spiritual master for the wisdom of his teachings. My beliefs differ, not from theology, but from typical Christian preaching:
• Yes, God walked on earth two thousand years ago, but God walks on earth no less today.

• Yes, Jesus was an incarnation of God. No, he was not the ONLY incarnation in human history, not the once-and-for-all event changing everything for all time.

• Yes, Jesus had a particular mission. No, he did not found Christianity.

• Yes, Jesus had an intimate relationship with the Mystery we call God. No, the universe was not qualitatively changed at his conception.

• Yes, Jesus’ suffering and death contributed to universal salvation. No, his was not the ONLY salvific suffering and death.

• Yes, Jesus had uncommon wisdom, strength, and character. No, his perfection did not surpass human perfection.

• Yes, it is helpful to relate to a living Jesus. No, he is not the only door to salvation and not the final, definitive revelation of God for all time. He is one legitimate God-image, not the best or only one.

 Was Jesus the most perfect human being who ever lived? What does it matter? This is another empty and insupportable claim of Christians to supremacy. Let us give up this triumphalist attitude. It is enough that, in the West, Jesus is the most accessible great figure of antiquity to inspire right living for us. Instead of clinging to a belief that limits Incarnation to one specific man, we could use a phrase that comes out of scripture—the Body of Christ, of which we are all members.