Revolutionary Faith
Teaching cultural history has convinced me there is nothing revolutionary about belief in a God or gods, as long as you’re not particular about doctrine.
And even if you’re looking for specific beliefs or practices present in Judaism or Christianity, you’ll find echoes somewhere in history:
- Hammurabi purportedly received a law code from the god Shamash, similarly to Moses’ later example.
- An Egyptian pharaoh around 1350 BC proposed monotheistic belief (it didn’t take hold).
- Muhammad (born later than the first Jewish and Christian monotheists) decried the worship of other gods than Allah, and removed their idols from the Kaaba in around 630 AD.
Indeed, there are so many varieties of religious belief and experience–whether or not they resemble Christianity–that an atheist might have a stronger claim to being truly revolutionary in a historical sense.
But, is there another sense in which belief, specifically Christian belief, is revolutionary? I’d certainly like to think so. Indeed, I am staking my eternal destiny on the notion that Jesus actually is God and does save people from their sins.
I’d like to believe Christianity is revolutionary in that it is true. Otherwise, Richard Dawkins would have a point with his quip: “We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.”
I’d like to believe Christianity is revolutionary because it is true in a way that the belief in Thor, Shamash, Anubis, or Zeus isn’t.
But, what exactly does it take to be a revolutionary belief system and does Christianity as revolutionary make it continually relevant today, or do we need another revolution, somehow (as many revivalists have sought)?
In order to answer this, we have to identify the characteristics of a revolution and see whether they can justifiably be said to apply to Christianity.
Two Observations on Revolutions
There are two things I learned about revolutions from college classes:
1. If sociopolitical revolutions happen too fast, they end disastrously.
2. Revolutions in thought (following a schema outlined by Thomas Kuhn) move from widespread agreement, to chaos based on new data or observations, to a paradigm shift that accommodates new information.
Moving too Quickly
An example of revolutions moving too quickly can be found in East Germany during the cold war. There was a sort of enthusiasm to demonstrate the supremacy of socialist policies over and against those of capitalism or Nazi totalitarianism.
But these policies led to an uneven playing field: socialism was supposed to beat religion in a fair fight. It was supposed to defeat capitalism and other economic or political doctrines, and inspire loyalty in its citizenry. One wonders, then, why a man whose friend I met was imprisoned and tortured when he simply wrote a letter about desiring to visit a relative in the west.
Why, too, was the church in the German Democratic Republic targeted through alternative programs like a Jugendweihe or consecration to the socialist ideals of the state, when such religious devotion was denounced as unhealthy for youth? Did it somehow make it better for the god in question to be the state? Did it give no one pause to consider that the raised fist salute of the Youth had parallels to their avowed political enemies’ Nazi open-palmed salute?
To this day, there are people I spoke with in the former German Democratic Republic who view the failure of socialism not as a foregone conclusion, but as a state betrayal of socialist ideals in favor of power.
Instead of a gradual revolution that involved people in crafting solutions to the (perhaps insurmountable) difficulties posed by socialism’s economic practices, the German Democratic Republic saw the rise of humanity’s largest civilian spy apparatus: some two percent of the population was involved full time in spying on others, and perhaps as many as one in seven were involved part time in spying on others.
All this represents a reactionary economic and sociopolitical attitude that manifested itself–not in freedom from the excesses of Nazism, capitalism, or religion, but a new dictatorship fueled by fears of those things and others.
The way dissenting opinions and people are handled makes the difference between oppression and more harmonious outcomes. But, there’s another sort of revolution to consider as we ponder where Christianity fits as a revolutionary faith: a revolution in thought.
A Revolution in Thought
An example of this is the Copernican Revolution: the earth-centered view of the solar system and planets struggled to account for planetary motions as elegantly as a sun-centered view. Eventually, the preponderance of evidence in support of the sun-centered model of the solar system became overwhelming such that practically no one questions it today.
Jesus as Revolutionary
So, what sort of revolution is Christianity? That probably depends on how we understand Christ. Was Jesus a political figure? A mystic? A free thinker who came to upend the religious status quo?
We admire revolutionary people: entrepreneurs who “disrupt” billion dollar industries are almost a cliche, and some become household names. We may applaud the idea of changing up the operations of the political machine or taking on the “deep state,” “political elite,” or whatever lumbering organization might perpetuate the way things currently are.
It is easy to imagine what an entrepreneur or maverick politician has come to do, but what about Jesus? What do we make of him?
Come Thou Long Expected Jesus
At this time of year, we like to think of the coming of Jesus. But, I wonder how we think of him. Is Jesus some mythical figure of warmth and good cheer, or is He something more?
There was some longing on the part of Jesus’ followers for a revolutionary figure to overthrow Rome and establish a kingdom in Israel.
And how often do we wish for Jesus to come and put a swift end to the ills we see around us?
My childhood pastor always loved the vision, not of a meek and mild Jesus, but an almighty warrior: “From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty” (Revelation 19:15).
Somehow, this powerful, vengeful God was an answer to the incomprehensible incarnation as a helpless baby at Christmas time.
Perhaps my pastor was resonating with the idea of a swift revolution, where the ills of pleasure-seeking, the “social gospel,” and the scientific atheism he saw infiltrating U.S. society were all summarily dismissed: swept away by the sword and scepter of God.
But, is that how the Kingdom of God comes? Not hardly.
The Slow Revolution
Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened” (Matthew 13:33).
I enjoy baking pizza for my family; but I don’t buy a pre-made crust; rather, I make my own dough. Water, yeast, sugar, olive oil, and flour. It always appears as though there will not be nearly enough dough. After an hour covered with a damp towel, the dough has doubled in size!
I imagine that, if I had the luxury of sitting next to the clear, glass bowl, the expansion of the dough would be slow enough to be imperceptible to the naked eye. I would either need to see the yeast working on a microscopic level or have a time lapse camera to notice the difference.
Yet, there’s no disputing the ultimate outcome: enough dough for two homemade pizzas.
The revolutionary nature of the kingdom of God is like leaven in flour: slowly, yet undeniably at work to produce transformation. God has come down and lived among us, leaving us with both his teaching and his example. Furthermore, it is not only a religious elite that has access to God and his Spirit, but rather all believers.
The revolutionary aspect of Christianity is that God’s will and power is worked in the world by anyone, anywhere, who believes: “But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him” (John 4:23).
Jesus is telling the woman at the well–and us–of a revolution in how and where people will participate in the kingdom of God. It will not be limited to Jerusalem or a specific holy place. It will not require a priest or mediator other than Jesus.
We may long for the fast revolution, but that is not how God operates; rather, he gradually transforms people into what he wants them to be. But, make no mistake, the revolution is growing.
The Scale and Speed of the Kingdom of God
“He put another parable before them, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches'” (Matthew 13:31-32).
Here, we see the kingdom of God doesn’t come on the scale we want it to. We are looking for a grand revolution in scale and size. Perhaps we want radical social change; perhaps we want to reverse the trends we see in our society and quickly!
The kingdom of God starts small, but eventually will dwarf anything else in the metaphorical garden.
Do we have the patience for that?
Misplaced Faith
Or do we put our faith elsewhere, in a political leader, perhaps? What is the outcome of such misplaced faith? Let’s consider when God’s people rejected him in favor of a worldly king:
“And the LORD said to Samuel, ‘Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. According to all the deeds that they have done, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt, even to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are also doing to you. Now then, obey their voice; only you shall solemnly warn them and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them'” (1 Samuel 8:7-9).
Sometimes, in our haste, we can turn to political power (or other institutions) as an avenue through which we will channel good into the world–and, in fairness, the politicians and laws around us profoundly impact the way culture behaves: justly or unjustly.
Yet, there is something perverse about this desire, if it goes too far: it can be a rejection of God. In the general cultural context of the passage above, Mesopotamian rulers were practically regarded as gods, at least by association. Hammurabi’s law code was handed to him, according to numerous depictions, by the god Shamash, for example. The king is depicted as bigger in stature, and in the Epic of Gilgamesh is given the epithet “Shepherd of the People,” placing the king solidly above the people in kind. In fact, Gilgamesh abuses his position as king, and the people cry out to the gods for help.
So too is it in the Bible passage about the people of God. Only in this case, the people chose their king and reap the consequences: “And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the LORD will not answer you in that day” (1 Samuel 8:18).
Do we–whatever our political persuasion–mistakenly identify the Kingdom of God with the Kingdom of this World?
If Jesus’ kingdom is not a political revolution, necessarily, does it take on another form?
Jesus as Intellectual and Spiritual Revolutionary
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:43-45).
This sounds like a paradigm shift: a fundamental change in how we see the world that better accounts for the information we know about God.
What is a Paradigm Shift?
Think of it like this:
Newtonian physics works really well: well enough to fly planes, drive cars, and do pretty much any large-scale terrestrial movement you could wish. Yet, as I understand it, it could not quite account for the motions of Mercury, the innermost planet.
Einstein came along and his theory put Newton’s physics in a broader context, explaining what Newtonian physics couldn’t: the “spooky action at a distance” of gravity was the result of the curvature of spacetime because of mass. Newton wasn’t wrong, but his understanding was incomplete.
Jesus did not negate the scriptural spirituality of the Jews, necessarily, but rather expanded their understanding.
The model shown by God is doing good to all: those who are evil and those who are good. It’s a revolutionary thought, but also–by definition–an ongoing and slow revolution: a series of person-by-person, group-by-group interactions.
Jesus’s Coming as Paradigm Shift
Jesus coming into the world represented a paradigm shift:
“The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:9-14).
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Notice two things:
- The expanded reach of God’s work: (“gives light to everyone;” “to all who did receive him […] he gave the right to become children and God.”
- The presence of the Word of God as a person: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”
What’s revolutionary about Christianity? The incarnation. The revelation of God as a flesh-and-blood person in a real time and space.
In Islam, Allah is beyond representation or conceiving. He doesn’t eat or drink like people, and the prohibition on images in much of the Islamic world is in part to assure only God is worshipped.
Judaism has prohibitions against graven images, and seeing God is perceived as a lethal experience.
In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the gods appear when they will, but are often limited to appearing to important people, and are selective about relating to people. Eternal life is reserved only for them.
The contrast in Christianity is a God who is not (merely) inaccessible.
What Does Jesus as a Revolutionary Mean?
Jesus is the “light who gives light to everyone” and is merciful to “the evil and the good.” He commands us to love our enemies.
If we receive him, we have to receive what he represents as well. We can no longer idolize something else by using it as our paradigm to understand the world around us.
Who is your enemy?
Is it a political opponent: the “Do Nothing Dems” or “RepubliCONs?” Is it an undocumented or illegal immigrant? A person who is considering or has had an abortion? A person who identifies with the LGBTQ community?
Is Jesus still the light for that person? Did he die for that person? What should you do as a child of God?
If we do not do what Jesus says, what does that mean for us?
Matthew 25: 42-46: “For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
Have we realized what it means for the Kingdom of God to come? Are we part of the slow revolution or is it going undetected in front of our eyes until the day it is unmistakable and we find ourselves hearing: “Depart from me. I never knew you.”
Christianity is an ongoing and slow revolution: a series of person-by-person, group-by-group interactions. Do we have the patience for that? Click To Tweet
