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I AM A
CHRISTIAN
I believe in God, the Creator from nothing of heaven and earth and of
everything visible and invisible. This Creator-God is the God of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob, who is also identically the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. There
was a man, born in Bethlehem of Judea, born of a virgin whose name was Mary, a
virgin who did not know a man. This man's name was Jesus. He lived for about
thirty years in a little town in Galilee, called Nazareth, with his mother and a
man called Joseph who was espoused to his mother and who remained faithful to
both of them, though Mary remained ever-virgin. He was a carpenter.
Then,
at about the age of thirty, this Jesus of Nazareth, began to gather around him
disciples. He taught them many things about themselves, about God, and above all
about Himself. He also moved about with his disciples in those idyllic Galilean
villages only about a hundred miles south of where I was born, villages not much
different from the villages that I know perfectly to my own region. He moved
about teaching, preaching, provoking, challenging and doing many miracles. By
miracles I mean such things as causing a man who was born blind to see exactly
as you and I do, and raising the dead... yes, the dead!!
He
said wonderful things — things pure, powerful, deeply moving, and immediately
convincing. And the strange fact about many of the things he said is that they
convince you only because he said them. But the totality of what he said is such
that there is nothing, nothing like it in any literature. There man be
approximations to it, distant rumblings of it, as in some places in the Old
Testament, or in some of the teachings of Zoroaster or the Buddha, or in some of
the sayings of the Muslim Sufis who came a thousand years after him, or even in
some things that Socrates or Plato and the Stoics said; but when you come to
what he said, you find here's the thing, here's the original, here's what
everybody else before him and after him was straining after and did not quite
attain, so that all these others were imitations of him, intimations of him,
reflections, more or less impure, of him, fallings away from him, yearnings for
him. So what he said was uniquely wonderful. But what he did was also uniquely
wonderful.
He
chose fisherman, very simple, as his disciples, and he loved them to the end. He
performed many miracles to which I have referred. But above all, he willingly
and knowingly accepted death on the cross outside the wall of Jerusalem under
Pontius Pilate. And nobody crucified him, nobody crucified him there except my
fears and compromises and calculations and bigotries and sins — -fears and
compromises and sins that existed identically and in abundance in the hearts of
those who cried “Crucify Him, crucify him,” to that I am in no wise better than
they, so that if I chanced to be among them I would almost certainly have joined
their chorus.
It was
inveterate sin, then, sin which abounds in my heart, including my lust and my
forgetfulness of God, that killed Jesus of Nazareth on the cross outside the
wall of Jerusalem under Pontius Pilate. And if my heart is slightly better, and
to the extent that it is better, it is so because he washed away sin on the
cross through his blood, and because he arose from the dead on the third day.
Lo, I meant to kill him, but I did not succeed; lo, he triumphed over my evil
design; lo, he liveth now and sitteth gloriously on the right hand of God. I am
cleansed from my sin, then, because he did not die, although I meant him to; or
rather, because he actually and completely died exactly as I meant him to, but
through the power of God he actually and completely rose from the dead on the
third day; and because before his absolutely humiliating defeat of my intention
— although for three days I thought I had triumphed — I am shattered, I bow my
head in shame, I beg his forgiveness, and--this is what overpowers me — he
forgives me. I say to him after his resurrection: “Thou hast triumphed, I will
not do it again; I will not hate thee again; I will not scheme against thee
again; I will not love my pleasures and my self-will over thy will; I know
better.” Do I really know better? Ah, that is the question? And if I do not know
better, if I deny him again, he is faithful; he cannot deny himself. He keeps on
forgiving me despite my sins, because that is his nature, and because he needs
me no more after his triumph. And that is why, with Peter, I weep bitterly, and
that is why I love him all the more.
I beg
you not to be offended by the language I am using, language that is quite
honorable and has been used for centuries. I am sure that you are above making
fun of me when I speak of Jesus Christ sitting now at the right hand of God the
Father. I am not speaking of this three-dimentional space where you speak of
right and left, and above and belows, and in front and behind.. Ah, “sitteth at
the right hand of God” is a wonderful phrase that has meaning only in the order
of love and suffering and death. He who has loved much, and has suffered much,
and daily faces his death, and has known Jesus Christ, understands perfectly
what its meant by Jesus Christ rising from the dead on the third day and sitting
right now at the right hand of God the Father. Whatever is the “ontological
place” of God the Creator, Jesus Christ is exactly there; Jesus Christ is
exactly the same mode of being as God the Creator. That is why we also use the
phrase “God the Father.” Never was this wonderful phrase, “sitteth at the right
hand of God,” meant except in this ontological sense, which arises wholly in the
order of suffering, love, and death. I know this is how you take it, and this is
how you will take everything else I shall say that might otherwise appear
scandalous. In the perfect transparency of the Holy Spirt, who is the Spirit of
Truth , everything is perfectly clear; and when we are together attuned in
him,there can be no possibility of misunderstanding.
His
words were wonderful; his acts, including his resurrection, were wonderful; but
he himself is far more wonderful. He makes astounding claims about himself,
claims that no German lighter criticism can possibly completely void or explain
away; claims that I believe to be wholly true.
“You heard that it was said by them of old time...but I say unto
you...”
“The Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins.”
“my
Father, which is in heaven.”
“He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.”
“In this place is one greater than the temple.”
“For verily I say unto you, that many prophets and righteous men
have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to
hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them.”
“Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass
away.”
“Take eat, this is my body.”
“I adjure you by the living God, that you tell us whether you be the
Christ, the Son of God.”
“All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.”
“All things are delivered to me by my Father: and no man knoweth who
the Son is, but the Father; and who the Father is, but the Son, and he to whom
the Son will reveal him.”
“Had ye believed in Moses, ye would have believed in me for he wrote
of me.”
“I am the bread of life.”
“I am the light of the world.”
“I am the door.”
“I am the good shepherd.”
“I am the true vine.”
“Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath
everlasting life.”
“The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are
life.”
“I am from above, I am not of this world.”
“I proceedeth forth and came from God.”
“I and my Father are one.”
“Ye believe in God, believe also in me.”
“All things that the Father hath are mine.”
And
when the woman of Samaria would again and again change the subject, he would
again and again bring her back to it, until he finally told her bluntly that it
was he speaking unto her who was the Christ who should come into the world.
And
when Martha would change the subject by wandering off into some general
cosmological expectation of the resurrection, he would bring her back to it by
telling her, “I am the resurrection and the life.”
And
when Thomas would change the subject by asking him to show them the Father, he
would bring him back to it by telling him, “I am the way, the truth, and the
life.”
And
when Philip would change the subject by asking him to show them the Father, he
would bring him back to it by telling him, “Have I been so long with you, and
yet not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.”
His
words were wonderful, his acts were wonderful, but these claims that he made
about himself are infinitely more wonderful. And what is even more wonderful
about these claims is that there have been innumerable people throughout history
— normal people, sane people, useful people, responsible people, in full
possession of their minds — who actually believe them. Wonder of wonders —
-countless decent people, some of them great scientists and great philosophers,
have actually believed these unbelievable claims! And these people who
understood him and believed him and came to love him know that he said what he
said, and did what he did, only because he was who he said he was!
Theology is exactly that discipline that tries, in all humility and in all
seriousness, and without any spirit of cleverness, to make sense of them, not by
explaining them away, nor by reducing them to nonsense — as so many so-called
theologies do — but by believing them, and then by trying to relate them among
themselves and to the other propositions of Holy Writ, as well as the deliveries
of sound reason and healthy human experience. Genuine theology cannot
subordinate God and how he chose to reveal himself in what it calls reason and
human experience. Genuine theology must take equally seriously all three — -God,
reason, and experience; keeping always in mind, however, that, if God exists, he
must in the nature of the case always come first. And it is a very strange
discipline indeed that entertains even the slightest doubt about the existence
of its object.
Religion is the realm of the authentically personal, and I have been telling you
what I believe. For there is nothing more authentic and more personal than what
we ultimately believe. You may not be a Christian, but you are a man therefore
you certainly believe something; and your rocks-bottom beliefs, even if you do
not know them, or are shy or ashamed of expressing them, constitute precisely
your religion. Nay, you are identically your ultimate beliefs. All these silly
conversations and affected smiles that we daily and hourly carry on with one
another, no doubt very innocently and well meaningly, are so many ways of
“changing the subject” from our fundamental beliefs, either because we are not
sure of our beliefs, or because we are ashamed of them, suspecting in our heart
that they may be hollow, or because we are never quite thrown together into that
peace and grace of the Spirit which enables us to be personal and authentic
without being and appearing at the same time sentimental and silly. Common
worship is precisely the means of inducing this peace, the grace of the Holy
Spirit, whereby we can be authentically transparent with each other. This is the
wonderful significance of the great liturgies, such as that of St. John
Chrysostom with which I am best acquainted. It was only when “they were together
in one place” that the disciples were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began
to speak in other tongues. And I am sure you agree with me that we in our hearts
crave nothing more than such an experience of absolute power and illumination
and certainly from above whereby we would perfectly understand each other even
if we spoke “with other tongues,” or even if we did not speak at all. The"other
tongues” with which I am speaking is the tongue of simple, personal conviction,
which is faith in Jesus Christ. Believe me, all else is trash and dung by
comparison, as Paul would say.
And
so, moving on now a bit faster, I further believe — hoping and trusting that I
will shock none of you, and that if I do shock you, you will forgive me — I
further believe that “all things were made by him; and without him was not any
thing made that was made” — a tremendous statement, certainly to be most
carefully explained. I believe that this same Jesus of Nazareth who now sitteth
at the right hand of God is going to come again — to come again! When? I haven't
the slightest idea. How? I do not know. But, most assuredly, he is going to come
again, to judge all mankind, the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy
Spirit, Lord and giver of life, whom Christ sent to our hearts, so that we will
not be without him, and who inspires the faithful, and comforts them, and
revives them, and reminds them of Christ, and God, and all truth, and empowers
them to do wonders, a mighty token of God in our midst. I believe in one Church,
holy, catholic or universal or all-embracing, and, most especially, apostolic.
Finally, I believe in the resurrection of the body and in the life everlasting.
I beg
you, once again, not to misunderstand me. I do not believe these things in order
of physical science or cosmology, that is to say, not because physical science
and cosmological speculation can prove them to me. I studied under the greatest
cosmologist of this century, Alfred North Whitehead; it is not in his sense that
I believe these things. I cannot demonstrate them to you mathematically, or
scientifically, or through sense perception, or as I might argue from the truth
of some political or historical proposition. Oh, I most emphatically and
assuredly believe in the actual, historical, physical, certain death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ. This wonderful deposit of faith, which I have
received, and of which I must prove worthy, and to which I must remain faithful,
belongs to the order of sufferings, anxiety, love and death. He who suffers
understands what I mean. He who daily wrestles with the devil understands what I
mean. He who is anxious understands what I mean. He who loves intensely
understands what I mean. And he who faces death and all that this death actually
and concretely means in his own life understands what I mean. Faith is grounded
in the order of suffering and love, an order from which every other order,
including science, philosophy, history, and politics, flows and emanates.
What
now, I ask, are the reasons for my faith? After asking us to “sanctify the Lord
God in our hearts” — people often forget this preamble — St. Paul adds: “Be
ready always to give an answer to every man who asks you a reason for the hope
that is in you with meekness and fear.” Obviously I cannot go into my reasons in
great detail, but the kind of reasons I would argue from are the following:
First:
The teaching of these things from my earliest life by people, both religious and
lay, who loved me most purely and who had absolutely no axe to grind save to
witness to the deepest they knew. Therefore, I trust them.
Second: The authority of the Church in its teachings, its traditions, its
doctrines, its liturgy, for 2,000 years. Here again I believe the motive is
absolutely pure; therefore I believe the Church.
Third:
The authority of the Bible which I love most dearly, and which, the more I read
it, increasingly means everything to me.
Fourth: The witness of the saints, and I can name twenty of them, in whose
intellectual and spiritual company I crave to live more than in the company of
any other crowd of men, including the greatest non-religious philosophers, whom
I also love.
Fifth:
The testimony of what I have called the order of suffering, loneliness, love and
death, in its daily, hourly, minutely, cumulative impact upon the whole of my
life.
Sixth:
In a sense, this is the most important reason: the Holy Spirit in my heart, when
it is there and to the extent that it is there.
To the
question, what is the reason of the hope that is in me, I answer — I trust in
meekness and fear and after sanctifying the Lord God in my heart — these are my
reasons, that which I cannot imagine anything more solid or more dependable.
Why
have I plagued you so far with my personal faith? Why have I bored you with this
queer recital of the Nicene Creed, which all of you know by heart! Because
religion is the realm of the authentic person; and because the current crisis,
at its deepest, has to do precisely with these priceless articles of faith which
were first formulated more than sixteen centuries ago and which have been
faithfully confessed by the Church ever since. Today God is denied, or watered
down, or changed beyond recognition. Creation is denied, or at least the world
is conceived as self-creative. Jesus of Nazareth has become a “gallant young
man,” as Mr. Hammarskjold called him in his book that all of you must read. His
claims about himself are either denied outright or passed by in magnificent
silence. His passion is denied, the cross is denied, his resurrection is a myth,
and who would dare speak today of his second coming, or of the Holy Ghost, or of
the apostolicity of the Church, or, in this age of science, of the resurrection
of the body, without being ridiculed.
