Something to share!
From one of my subscriptions - http://www.catholica.com.au
All of the great religions are, in a sense, a paradigm or framework out of which we construct our view of the world and our relationship to it. Catholicism and Christianity are paradigms — a set of rules and beliefs that help each of us "make sense" of our world, and navigate the mountains and valleys of our earthly journey. I sense part of the contemporary problem institutionalised religion might be going through or, more specifically, institutionalised Christianity, is that the "paradigm" is breaking down. That's essentially why we are seeing this big "exodus" in educated society today not just from institutionalised Catholicism but from virtually any form of institutionalised religion. The only places where institutionalised religion still has some hold is in societies where the ordinary people still have a sense of being oppressed, either by poverty or lack of access to education.
In recent history — by that I mean from the time of Constantine and Roman Catholic Institutionalised Christianity — Jesus has been presented to us as this "goody two shoes, conservative, social conformist" model. He is presented to us as a law-giver and one we had to emulate as one who obeyed the law, obeyed his parents, obeyed the "authorities" (whoever they happened to be). The Roman Empire adopted Christianity under Constantine not primarily because of any beliefs Jesus might have had but for the political reason that the temporal rulers saw in Christianity a way to unite the Roman Empire and build a conformist, law-abiding society rather than an unconformist, difficult-to-control society. Christianity was perceived as a pathway to social and political stability even if, in its earlier history, the Roman authorities of the time had viewed it as a radical movement and potentially destablising to their social and political agenda. The Holy Roman Empire that evolved after the collapse of the Roman Secular Empire took all this a long way further and we've subsequently had evolve these great litanies of saints and role models who basically all model social conformity and docility on the part of the masses in humanity. Jesus, in a sense, is presented as a means, or model, of social control.
Is that actually true to the Gospel picture presented of Jesus? Is this "paradigm" we were all taught to believe in actually faithful to the "historical Jesus"? Was Jesus really some "law-giver" and social conformist — some pawn, or tool, of the political and religious authorities of his day?
I think not. Jesus did not have some "political" or "social conformist" agenda. It was a radically individualist agenda albeit about how the individual could live within a community and retain their fundamental integrity. It was NOT "radically individualist" in the sense of how modern capitalism often presents itself as "radically individualist" but always as "the individual acting in harmony, or in communion/in communio, with one's neighbours, with society at large and with one's environment, habitat and the rest of creation". In proposing a "kingdom", Jesus wasn't proposing yet another political party — some alternative to all the rest of them — or yet another monarchical system of government or social organisation. He didn't even pretend to found some "church" or "religion" from what we can discern in the Scriptural record he left behind.
His agenda, if you can call it that, was a "radically individualist" message directed at each individual person trying to show them that the pathway to a fulfilled life, to personal integrity, rather than some "program" or "paradigm" or "gospel" that might be adopted by some political party, some church, some high priests that could be used to "build some kingdom". The "kingdom" Jesus presents via his parables and the entire Scriptural story is created not by political parties, government and churches but rather by a huge community of individuals each striving for personal integrity in their lives.
The outcome may well seem similar: if you can create a whole society of individuals with deep "personal integrity" you create "a perfect society". That is radically different though to some government, some king, some prime minister, some Roman Emperor, some Pope, some parent, trying to create "a perfect society" or "a perfect family" by encouraging docility and social conformism in all their citizens, or in their own family if we're talking the case of a parent.
Jesus is so often presented to us by the institutional churches as some kind of law-giver and social conformist. He was neither. He was a law-breaker and non-conformist — almost every parable in the Scriptural record is a lesson in how to break some law or social custom. Not just for the hell-of-it though, like some anarchist or radical individualist capitalist, but always in morally legitimate ways. Essentially the message is that to achieve personal integrity, to become a whole, self-individuated person, to live morally, the harsh reality is that you have to disobey many laws and rules and human statutes and social mores. The entire "message" of Jesus is essentially one huge "life lesson" in how to go about that. Jesus is often described as the great iconoclast — the smasher of idols. Is that not what is being described in this paragraph?
I really wonder if this present unprecedented drift away from institutionalised religion that we see going on society-wide today is not some intuitive sense we collectively all have that we've been "led up the garden path" by our priestly class and ecclesial leaders. The "people at large" have begun to sense we've been fed porkies* for far too long. Society-wide are we not searching for a new religious paradigm — a new interpretation of Jesus that is far truer to the original model and the scriptural record and wisdom that was left to us?
* Porkies is a shortened version of Australian slang for lies = telling 'pork pies' - telling lies!!
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