Recently I was reminded of what Frederick Douglass wrote about the consequences of this kind of division. Considering that the ethics and teachings of the Jesus story only apply to our spiritual aspects and not to our physical existence, it is important to note that what we believe spiritually and what we practice materially There are often contradictions between things.
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(Read parts 1 and 2 of this series from the beginning.)
in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American SlaveDouglas writes:
“Indeed, I see only the most deceptive reasons for calling the religion of this country Christianity. I regard this as the culmination of all misnomers, the boldest of all deceptions, and the worst of all slanders. There is no clearer example of someone stealing the uniform of the heavenly court and serving the devil. ”When I think of the religious pretenses and pretensions and the terrible contradictions that surround me everywhere, I am filled with an indescribable disgust. Pastors have hostages, missionaries have female slaves, church members have cradle robbers. On weekdays, the man brandishing a blood-curdled cowskin takes to the pulpit on Sunday and claims to be the meek and humble minister of Jesus. The man who takes my earnings every weekend meets me as a class leader on Sunday mornings and shows me the path of life and the path of salvation. The man who sells my sister for prostitution stands up as a pious defender of chastity. A man who declares reading the Bible a religious duty denies me the right to learn to read the name of the God who created me. A man who defends marriage religiously deprives millions of his divine influence. ” (Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave.)
Some might consider Douglas’s experience to be an extreme example of the disconnect between the material and spiritual worlds. I can’t help but think of the Inquisition, the Crusades, and colonial Christianity’s treatment of indigenous peoples. Even today, many Christians find it impossible to apply even the simplest Golden Rule ethics to America’s predatory capitalist economic system. We also distinguish between spiritual and material things.
But if we take seriously the Jewish Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels, we find that God is materially concerned about our physical daily lives and that society harms those on its margins. What happens if we consider it to be shaped? This Jesus did not travel through the countryside of Galilee to get people to say special prayers so that they could escape spiritually now and experience the bliss of the afterlife later. The synoptic Jesus worked to bring about justice as a manifestation of God’s will being done “on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). This Jesus sought to influence people’s material reality as a source of healing, life, and liberation, and modeled salvation as also related to spiritual well-being and material liberation.
Jesus, as seen in the other Gospels, did not separate the spiritual from the flesh or the physical. He teaches believers to love his neighbor as part of himself (Luke 10:25-37) and by engaging with those our society considers “the least of them” (Matthew 25:31-46). , taught us how to live in the material world. The synoptic Jesus announces the coming of God’s reign in our material world and invites everyone to become a part of it. He justifies injustice, ends oppression, and provides a healing alternative to violence. This Jewish Jesus did not separate the spiritual from the material in order to provide a way of escape from the physical world around us. Rather, he teaches us how to draw ourselves into the physical world in life-giving ways, how to bring healing to ourselves and those around us, and how to mold our material world into a safe, caring, and rightful home for all. He taught his followers how to do it.
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