Mind Boggling

As I shared before, I have been reading Karen Armstrong's book about the growth of fundamentalism (The Battle for God) and listening to some tapes of Jean Vanier on the Gospel of St John. Yesterday something really struck me and I wanted to share it with you.

I know that Christianity is hardly the flavour of the month currently. Folks, sadly (from my point of view) are leaving in droves - at least as organized religion. I think I do understand better why, the longer I live and also, the more I read. 

I found myself comparing how Jean goes about talking about Jesus, about the Gospels, about what it means to be a Christian and what Karen is saying that many Christian (I want to put that in quotation marks) fundamentalists think being Christian means. The difference between the two is so enormous that I wonder how it can be that people can read and study and pray around the same book (the bible) and come up with such wildly different understandings.

Jean (you will understand that I am totally in accord with what he says) speaks of Christianity and most specifically the Jesus he meets in the gospel as the essence of forgiveness, mercy, compassion, integrity, acceptance of the human condition in all its darks and lights. That is not to say that Jesus is wishy-washy because love is hard and often painful. But it is to say that he represents all that is best in human nature.

The fundamentalist seems mostly to be looking at (as fact) the creation story in the book of Genesis and the horrors and battles found in the book of Revelation (which I would like to suggest should not be in the bible since with the exception of a few beautiful passages it seems totally out of sync with the message of Jesus in the gospels). Anyway, the fundamentalist prefers to think of Jesus as a man of battle who in anger is going to wipe out everyone who does not please him. This Jesus is not, apparently, a man of peace. We are all going to be judged severely if we believe in: birth control, abortion, gay marriage, evolution, equality of women and so on. The message is exclusive (nobody but white, protestants [maybe a few RC's] need apply) and severe.

How can this be? Nowhere in the gospels is that part of Jesus' message. The most powerful of Jesus' images is in fact, not to obey 'the rules' but to love. He also makes clear time after time, that we - as we are, with all the dark places we want to hide - are beloved sons and daughters of God. That in good part was what Jesus exists to say to us.

I suppose that what happens here has to do with our personalities? our upbringing? our fears? so that what we believe will be to some extent governed by that. Perhaps mostly our fears.

I am just boggled and very, very sad that a message which is meant to be loving gets transformed into exclusive, angry, misogynist so-called Christianity.