I grew up with it, there in the Prong of the Buckle of the Bible Belt. too. In junior high, I was constantly being asked by the kids who lugged forty-pound parallel Bibles around during the school day if I had "accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior." The "personal savior" was always emphasized and given the intonation of a challenge.
Why, yes. Yes, I had. However, I didn't feel that meant to me what it meant to them. Just because I had welcomed the grace of God through Christ into my life did not mean that I needed to turn my eyes only toward the suffering on the cross for me and away from the suffering here on earth. Just because Jesus loves me-- and he does-- does not mean that I should not try to reflect that love back onto those who are also a part of his body besides me. It's not only about me and Jesus. Jesus calls us all into his body.
The misinterpretation of the concepts of freedom and liberty is actually not biblically based at all. This comes from an Enlightenment emphasis on individualism that is completely antithetical to the biblical concept of living in covenantal relationships with each other. For instance, a search of scripture in the NRSV shows 17 uses of the word "liberty" in the entire Bible, and in none of those instances is it used as a synonym for individualism. The use of individualistic terms by those simultaneously claiming to be fundamentalist Christians is specious at best: they may want to believe that God lets us honor our own interests over others', but it just isn't there.
This individualistic Christianity has become something of a civic religion in America. This self-centered Christianity originates in a literal reading of scripture over a devotion to the SPIRIT of scripture. It seems to be espoused, not surprisingly, by those who also prefer a literal reading of the Constitution to a view that takes into account the spirit of the laws (a quote from the Baron de Montesquieu, one of the major influences upon those who produced the Constitution, by the way.) This is a literalist Christianity when it comes to matters of other people's morality but a Christianity in which Jesus's love and forgiveness is a free pass from any requirement that our behavior be reformed in the future. This is particularly a problem politically in the United States. Witness Newt Gingrich's serial marriages and repeated infidelities, and Rick Perry's or Rick Santorum's lack of compassion for anyone but themselves. Mitt Romney's oh-so-profitable adventures at Bain Capital were certainly legal, but were they moral?
The strictest interpretation of God's saving grace is directed at us as individuals, yes. But the spirit of God's grace has to move us to love others as we love ourselves. And in today's culture we seem to love ourselves intensely!
Everything is all about me, me, ME!!!!
"I need money." "I need an iPhone." "I need a fabulous meal." These are all things we say all the time. But now, this type of self-centeredness has entered the cant of American politics as statements (from people who self-identify as religious) as "I shouldn't have to pay for lazy people who won't get a job," or "The healthcare reform act takes away everyone's freedom to choose,"-- as if there are people who need health care who choose to forgo it. And sometimes, it seems that those of us who proclaim a close personal relationship with Jesus acknowledge we need his love and forgiveness-- but without needing any more burdens placed upon our very over-scheduled lives and attention spans, and showing damned little love and forgiveness for others' flaws and weaknesses.
One of the people who taught me in junior high prompted me to think about this as a kid. She thought of herself as a Christian and made sure we all knew she was a Christian. And yet there was no love for anyone in her heart that we could discern-- especially, I suspect, love for adolescents, which must have been particularly a trial for her. To her, this world was a place of evil and sorrow. Now if you thought about this long enough, that "evil" part seemed to include her students, and her relationship with her students reflected this repugnance and antipathy. Her love for God did not lead anybody else toward an understanding of God. And how else are people going to know God, especially if they come from an unchurched background, except through the example of those who claim to follow God?
God gives us freedom, but that freedom does not allow us to do whatever we like. That freedom places some serious responsibilities on us to be the agents of God's love into the world. Oh, listen, God's love is already there, but we spend so much of our time focused on worldly distractions with all their booming and crashing and shiny lights that we expect God's love to be just as insistent in its pull on our attention. No, the only way the rest of the world will notice God's love is through the love we as Christians show them. Our personal relationship with Christ is only as strong as our love for others.
Paul makes this point too in the epistle we read today from 1 Corinthians 6. Part of the epistle is this:
"All things are lawful for me," but not all things are beneficial. "All things are lawful for me," but I will not be dominated by anything. "Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food," and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is meant not for fornication but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?Paul is talking about the difference between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. If we look at only our own relationship with Jesus, we take our eyes off the purpose of our relationship with Jesus.
Just because I am allowed to do something, does not mean I should do it. If all the self-professed Christians in politics and business would follow this concept, imagine what a different world this would be. Instead of concentrating on our individual liberty, as Christians we are called into the BODY of Christ-- which includes others.
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