Misguided Primitive Christians

Caesar is Lord After All

So all those Christians who laid down their lives in the circus arenas of Rome were deeply mistaken. True, they were faithful to what they believed, but their theology was bad. Extremist, actually. One might say they were fundamentalists and, as we all know now, fundamentalism is the greatest threat facing any society.

Rome periodically engaged in pogroms against Christians; thousands were killed. The church hailed them as martyrs at the time--but the church now knows differently. We are a bit more sophisticated. Our theology has matured.

Primitive Christians stupidly forced a confrontation with Pax Romana. Rome practised freedom of religion in the public square. Actually its multi-culturalism and commitment to religious pluralism was prodigious. Provided one's fundamental loyalties to the State remained firm, one could believe and worship as one chose. It was a most advanced proto-modern Western society. Rome deeply respected liberty of conscience in religious matters.

All one had to do was take a bit of an oath, offer a civil sacrifice, and make a profession of faith along the lines of "Caesar is Lord". Then you were free to believe and do as your conscience dictated. But primitive Christians were fundamental extremists. They had a narrow sectarian argument along the line of Jesus being Lord; therefore, whilst they were more than willing to be co-operative citizens, they were not prepared to take the required oath of state loyalty. To vow "Caesar is Lord" was to deny that "Jesus is Lord", apparently. How persnickety was that!

A lot of lives could have been saved if only the primitive church had had the benefit of a more mature and sanguine theology. Such as the one that thankfully operates in New Zealand today. We, in the modern church, understand that tolerance is a Christian virtue--probably the most important virtue of all, since tolerance is a manifestation of love, and well, God is love. So love must be God. So God is tolerance. And tolerance must be God. Therefore, it is profoundly Christian that tolerance is the highest civic virtue in our modern Western multi-cultural societies. So much so that if any today were to question the higher ethic of multi-culturalism and religious-belief-system pluriformity they would be proscribed, ridiculed and rejected as fundamentalists, and deservedly so.

It was really good to see that at the civic "day of mourning" in Christchurch last week the churches were not just represented, but were front and centre. Clearly the civil authorities have achieved a wonderful "Pax Romana", if you would permit the anachronism, the envy of any Caesar. The whole nation stood to worship a god--a god called "No-name"--a god with enlightened multi-cultural pluriform attributes so that we could all pour out our hearts to the "whatever-you-conceive-him/her/it-to-be god". Granted that's a bit of a mouthful of a moniker, but that's what the state requires, and not only is Caesar Lord, but he has to be this way if we are to be a tolerant multi-cultural religiously plural society--which is really a Christian society, after all. The thing celebrated was how we are all one with Christchurch, even though we all believe so differently. Well, actually those differences are trivial. Those early Christian martyrs were foolish fundamentalists. Thank god we have moved on.

It was great to see the Christian Church actively involved and front of stage. We noted how scrupulously careful many of the Christian officiants were to remove any reference to the Lord Jesus Christ. Quite right. How powerfully they were able to extend the greatest commandment of inclusive tolerance to all when they read from the Bible. Yes--that same Bible which the early Christians used. Now it is true that the rabid Apostle Paul, a fundamentalist of fundamentalists, actually wrote in that Bible that no-one can say "Jesus is Lord" and mean it, except by the power of Holy Spirit at work in one's soul. Now this sort of implies, to be fair, that if anyone is ashamed or reluctant to say "Jesus is Lord" and live it out publicly, then the Holy Spirit is not at work in them. But that's just Paul with his rabbinic Phariseeism talking.

Thankfully at times Paul rose above his Phariseeism. A more enlightened Paul also wrote those words which were so meaningful to so many people gathered at Hagley Park in Christchurch, namely "Who shall separate us from the love of God? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness? . . . For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God. . . ."

Now, granted that the actual phrase Paul wrote read "shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" but the Christian leaders were quite right to expunge that, since this was a civic occasion and we were not gathered to be sectarian in any way. We were all there in the name of the "whatever-you-conceive-him/her/it-to-be god" which is the only god acknowledged by Caesar today and therefore the only real god we should acknowledge as well--particularly on a civic occasion.

And as for Hayley Westenra singing Amazing Grace--well, didn't that send the old goose-bumps rising. All that stuff about "through many dangers, toils, and snares" and "grace will lead me home". Poor repentant slave trader, John Newton would never have imagined that his hymn of celebration of sectarian Christianity would have been liberated from its original narrowness and partisan sentiments and be employed in such a wonderful pluralistic civic occasion. Truly, our religion is what Caesar says it must be--and we are OK with that.

It is so heartening to be in our more enlightened modern age when we Christians have moved on from those primitive Christian fundamentalists. It is a great pity that their misguided zeal led them to their deaths, but things like that happen when you are not enlightened. We modern Christians were uplifted to see Christian officiants front and centre in Hagley Park. We felt good about ourselves. To be accepted and honoured by Caesar--well, it's not to be sneezed at.

As for that Lord Jesus Christ--well he died on a cross, so he would be used to such a humiliation as being excised from His own Scriptures. He would not mind. He would probably have been embarrassed by the over-scrupulous fundamentalism of those primitive Christians anyway. We know that we are, and that Jesus, if he is anything, is tolerant of our feelings. So he probably thinks what we think anyway.

Thank god--that one with a long name--we have moved on to a more civic and modern, and enlightened religion. We feel so comfortable. The god-with-no-name has led us home.