"It is enough for the disciple that he become like his teacher, and the slave like his master. If they have called the head of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign the members of his household! Therefore do not fear them, for there is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known." Matthew 10:26. The New American Standard.
Today, we're gonna talk about progress.
It's written in the scriptures that when Jesus started the movement of reforming the old law into a fresh, new way of looking at the world and its people, the leading opponents to Jesus's message were the religious elites. They would tell Jesus he was doing the devil's work, and that all his followers were under the influence of the devil.
But the thing is, Jesus wasn't unique in this. Many after him would find the same opposition on different grounds. Galileo was opposed by the Church when he submitted his theories about the earth not being the center of the universe, yet we now know it was true all along. Martin Luther King Jr. believed it was wrong to segregate people based on skin color, and thousands of church leaders and government officials disagreed. Yet, we collectively agree now that segregation is always wrong. And now, in 2015, there is a growing consciousness that marriage is a human right, and isn't confined to what the Bible may or may not say it is. We are in the middle of this one though, but I imagine in ten or twenty years, people will collectively agree that it's okay for gay people to marry.
There's always opposition to progressive thought. There was with Jesus as well as his followers. Their accusers would go to any length to keep them silent, yet the message still lived on, and it still lives on today.
And I believe that just as living things evolve, so do cultural norms, cultural ideologies, and religious systems. Sacrifices used to be the central component of religious thought, in order to appease the gods. And Jesus was the pioneer who near single-handedly transitioned the cultures he associated with out of that mindset and into a new mindset.
In the above passage, Jesus was talking to his disciples. He was telling them do not worry about the opponents of progress, because the truth would come out eventually. Evolution would run its course. Progress would continue. There will always be opponents to progress.
But what were the disciples telling people that received so much opposition? That the kingdom of heaven is here, now, and always present. That there was a way to peace and joy and it looked like helping the powerless, the poor, and the marginalized. It didn't require sacrifices or offerings or channeling through a priest, but was available to anyone who would have it.
While the world looked different then than it does now, the same message is still progressing and still finding the same opposition that it did then. Jesus helped move forward religious thought, helped to unpack it from the box it'd been stuffed in for thousands of years, and it scared people. It forced people to questions their own belief systems. It forced people to doubt their own ways of doing and believing. And a lot of people got scared. They couldn't imagine life without sacrifices or going to temple. They couldn't imagine a God who loved them without demanding their sacrificial allegiance. They couldn't imagine being on equal terms with the pagans and the misfits of their society.
Yet, it happened and it is happening.
Thought evolves. Religion evolves. And, Christianity evolves. Why should it be any different from the natural order that surrounds it? From the universe which it relies on for sustenance? Why shouldn't Christian thought have to play by the same rules that everything else plays by?
That question is really irrelevant though, because all we have to do is take a quick look at the history of Christianity to see where all the evolutionary turns have been made.
Right now, there are millions of Christians who are being hushed. Their voices aren't being heard. They recognize the evolutionary nature of Christianity and religion, and they're voices are lost in the noise of a Christianity that's marred with political leanings, religious hoopla, and biblical literalism. They're leaving the mainstream church. They're leaving religion. And they're leaving the outdated systems of biblical literalism behind. What they're doing is mixing in with the outcasts and the religious misfits. They're building community with the atheists and the agnostics of our world. They're throwing out the idea that you have to have a pulpit and a preacher, a building and an offering plate, a band and a Sunday service.
But you can't find them unless you happen to come across them. They're underground. They don't have billboards. They don't have websites. They don't want to have that stuff. They trust in what Jesus said, "What's concealed will be revealed and what's hidden will be known."
There is a growing human consciousness that values the sanctity of human life, and these Christians celebrate that. These Christians also celebrate the Bible, but question its infallibility, its inerrancy, and its literalism. These Christians celebrate evolution and see it as a natural component in the way things are. These Christians are able to celebrate the marriage of faith and science, without feeling like they have to jump through hoops to do so. These Christians celebrate the life and the teachings of Jesus, but at the same time don't believe Jesus was or is literally God, but a God-figure. These Christians seriously question the "rock-solid tenants" of the faith that have stood unquestioned for centuries. These Christians find a way to make the scriptures relevant, since they were spoken and then written over the course of thousands of years.
And these Christians are dead serious about their faith. They will die for the sake of building upon what Jesus started. They will lay their lives down for the sake of standing in solidarity with the marginalized, and they will not let the voices coming through the bullhorns of the mainstream Church sway them off their path. These Christians realize that they're way outnumbered, yet they don't mind speaking their minds. They understand that they will face opposition, but welcome it because they remember where they came from. It wasn't long ago that they were stuck in the same stagnant waters.
What is Christianity if it isn't progressive? Stagnant? Unchanging? Dying? Losing steam?
If my description comes pretty close to where you stand in your faith, Jesus's words hit close to home: "Don't fear those who are afraid of progress. Nature will reveal her truth."
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