Blue Like Jazz & The Hard Core Gospel
It’s old news, except in the mainstream. The Associated Press Story ran in the Cox newspapers this week. Donald Miller wrote Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality about five years ago. It’s selling like hotcakes (I-Pods?) and has been for some time. He is not alone in wanting a culturally relevant Christianity that repudiates exclusivism and judgmentalism, rules, hard-shell traditions that don’t promote the Christ-life for all people.
Some older readers could dismiss him and others like him as careless reactionaries. But would they dare say that to an entire generation of twenty-somethings? Some older readers should recall themselves in the 60s and 70s; I invite the comparison.
But what of the “us vs. them” noted in the AP article — Christians against non-Christians? Not entirely true, I’m sure, but true enough, and often enough. Practices belie professions too facilely made. Some older commentators have helped (and challenged me with their words), so I invite you to read on:
Jacques Maritain (in The Peasant of the Garonne, trans. Cuddihy & Hughes, 1968, pages 79-81), writing as a Catholic, primarily to Catholics. The topic was loyalty to the law of the cross of Christ; he wrote,
The more a Christian . . . gives an absolute primacy in his heart to a fully liberated brotherly love, and in dealing with non-Catholics or non-Christians, sees them as they really are, members of Christ, at least potentially, the more firmly he must maintain his positions in the doctrinal order (I don’t say he should brandish them at every turn), and must make clear the differences which, in the realm of what is true or false, separate him from these men he loves wholeheartedly. In acting thus, he will be honoring them. To do otherwise would be to betray Truth, which is above everything.
Maritain refers to the difficulties, the great discomfort, of practicing “brotherly love and the love of the One who is the Truth.” He continues,
To begin with, it is at the very core of brotherly love that inevitably we suffer in our hearts, because those non-Christians whom we love like members of Christ, of the beloved Saviour, do not know Christ. There can be and certainly is much of truth in their baggage. But they do not know the Truth, the Truth that frees, and it is a great misfortune for them, and one great joy less for heaven and for Jesus. They continue to struggle with many chains, they still collide against many barriers along their road; there are for them still many traps in the shadows. Would we love them truly if we didn’t suffer because of what they lack? The more fraternal love grows, the more this suffering also grows. Clearly, if anyone delights in loving them, and receiving the gift of their friendship in return, but without experiencing any of this suffering, there is something unreal about his love.
Maritain seeks the “natural joy” (Psalm 85:10 is in the background)
to contemplate in quite a few of our Christian brothers, entranced to be able at last to rub their noses, all atremble with enthusiasm, with the noses of all the sons of Adam.
I don’t soon expect to see my denominational brothers, or most American Christians, delighting to exchange a holy kiss or to practice certain other European or Middle Eastern forms of greeting among themselves, let alone with unbelievers. But I think Maritain is suggesting the rightness of just that kind of thing — of so delighting in the non-Christian as a brother or sister that we could all the more delight in him or her as a believer and full member of God’s household. Psalm 85 is about the restoration of a broken relationship — that between the LORD God and his people. So Maritain’s point is potent, poignant: in keeping faith with God, and with his gospel in the cross of Christ, how could the Christian not love thusly?
Maritain is not naive: a breach is possible when a non-Christian may reject doctrine — it could be a barrier. I agree. Perhaps, then, his point about the necessity of brotherhood, of true friendship, is chief. Jesus did say a thing or two, did he not, about friends and friendship? (John 15:13-15) Difficulties? You bet.
Novelist Will D. Campbell, in The Convention, in the novel’s closing scene at the home of Exell and Dorcas Rose McBride, at prayer time with their three mixed-ethnic foster children, including Leanne:
Leanne prayed the way she always did, for everything and everybody: the new kitten that Volene had gotten to replace Doshie: the Dominique rooster in a cardboard box on the back porch, his broken leg having been splinted by Dale Alan and Volene. Then Leanne called the names of everyone in the family and all the neighbors she could remember–especially for “Mister Leland who lives in the tar paper house on the left, just before you cross the river on the way to town who is bad sick and ain’t . . . uh . . . excuse me, God . . . I mean . . . and isn’t expected to live very long.” She thanked God for bringing Mama and Daddy home safely. She prayed for the fireflies in the jar and promised God that she would turn them loose in the morning if they didn’t smother.
When the prayer ended and they were getting to their feet, Denise whispered, “Leanne forgot to pray for the church.”
“No she didn’t,” their mama said.
Woe to us for the lack of holy imagination to envision a more inclusive church; where that statement might be misinterpreted, I say, then, that we must envision the possibility that Jesus is calling more people to his church than we are able to imagine.
More, later, perhaps.