Church Militant

For some reason, a church militant scares people. And so it should; the whole of human history is filled with the militancy of all kinds of human groups and cultures — any militant body is designed as an organisation that wins fights.

But why is a church militant different from a state militant, or a civis militant, or a polis militant? Could it be that people actually think that churches should be peaceful and non-militant? The way doves are supposedly emblems of peace? Even the Buddhists have a history of warfare.

The words of the Church's head are these:

Do not think that I came to bring peace on Earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man's enemies will be the members of his household

You can find these words in the tenth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. In the equivalent readings in Luke's gospel, he says:

I have come to cast fire upon the Earth; and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is accomplished! Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you, no, but rather division...

And so endeth this part of an ancient lesson.

Is Christianity Divisive?

Before I give any answer, I shall make a specific point. 'Divisive' means 'having the quality of forcing apart, or of causing separation'. It requires that the target of this quality must already be divisible; i.e. it has discrete elements that maintain their individuality once separated, at least for a time.

Is Christianity divisive? The answer is yes. This opinion is arrived at by consideration of its basic mandates as set forth in the New Testament. Jesus himself says:

Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division: For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. (Luke 12:51-53)

The equivalent passage in Matthew's gospel (Matthew 10:34-36) says:

Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.

In fact, the word of God is said to be "quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." (Hebrews 4:12)

The point, really, is discernment. Although there is to be unity among believers, each issue can cause division. Sometimes, this is a pointless division; sometimes it is useful. It can be pointed out that without the need for division, the epistles would never have been written; each of them is designed to give advice and argument against or in favour of specific practices and philosophies.

But since the Bible can be treated as a weapon, it must be used appropriately. That requires hermeneutic effectiveness and consistency — people who use the Bible as a tool for dividing X from Y must read it like any other key text: it is indeed possible to use analysis of the text to discard spurious readings, and it is something the conscientious user should do.

Christianity is inherently divisive; it says that some people will belong and some won't, it says that some will be on one side and some on the other, it acts in the capacity of a determining (i.e. a boundary-making, from Latin terminus = 'boundary') agent. It need not be so, but sometimes it needs to be so.

That said, there is another possible point. The act of creating meaning is perhaps itself divisive. To say that something is 'red', for example, is to assert that other things are not. If they were also 'red', 'red' would have no meaning.

Would saying that something is 'divisive' then lack meaning? After all, if all meaning divides, then 'divisive' has no meaning.

I think this argument doesn't work: when we say 'divisive', we mean actively so, dividing with intent or with built-in capacity for causing discord. That sense is attested from the 17th century. In that sense, not all things need to be divisive, although they may serve to divide. In Galatians 3, as well as in Colossians 3, St Paul points out that within Christianity, certain categories — race, social status, gender — cease to be relevant.

Christianity, it seems, may be divisive. But it can also serve to unite.

St David's Day (2010)

I've made it a habit to remember St David's Day, the first day of March in every year. It is a day with great significance in the calendars and journals of my kinsmen. St David is the patron saint of Wales, and one of his most well-remembered sayings there is this: "Do the little things in life." It sounds very different from the modern axiom, "Don't sweat the small stuff."

However, there is a point at which the two are reconciled. Perhaps the gospel of Luke says it well:

[Jesus] said to them, "Take heed! Beware of covetousness: for a man's life consists not in the abundance of the things which he possesses.

And [Jesus] spake a parable unto them, saying, "The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully; he thought within himself, saying, 'What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits?' And he said, 'This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul — Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.'

"But God said to him, 'You fool, this night your soul shall be required of you: then whose shall those things be, which you have provided?' So is he that lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God."

And [Jesus] said to his disciples, "Therefore I say to you, Take no thought for your life, what you shall eat; neither for the body, what you shall wear. The life is more than meat, and the body is more than raiment. Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; they have neither storehouse nor barn, and God feedeth them. How much more are you better off than they?"

It's true that we shouldn't sweat the small stuff, then. But it's also true that we should continue to do what good we can in the little things, the small things, the despised things, the 'sai kang' warrior's stock-in-trade. We are ravens, we are the fingers of God's hands in the world of men.

It is not for us to build larger and larger barns, storehouses, churches, schools, monuments, statues and other things of wood and stone, steel and glass. Some will say, "But this is how we glorify God." Yet these are not the sacrifices that He wants. He wants less of that, and more of us.

What the Welsh remember of St David is somewhat abbreviated. This is what he really said:

"Be joyful, and keep your faith and your creed. Do the little things that you have seen me do and heard about. I will walk the path that our fathers have trod before us."

If the children of the wyvern — if those whose blood runs red, and blue, and gold in the valleys of the nightmare — can do the small things well, then the grand endeavours that we cannot see will succeed. God is not mocked; men will reap what they have sown, and the harvest will be great indeed.

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[ Other St David's Day posts ]

Morning Has Broken

This morning, I had the privilege to hear from the 12th chapter of the Gospel of St Luke. Luke's gospel, I must confess, has not been a book I've read for some time. As the resonant words echoed in my head, I appreciated once more the beauty of his words, and the skill with which King James's translators turned them into English.

This is of course one of the three synoptic accounts of Jesus' teaching regarding 'the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy'. What is interesting is that you can tell quite often whether a person has read this passage (and other like passages from the synoptic gospels) from the way in which that person views Jesus' response to the world. In Luke 12, as in other parts of this gospel and the other gospels, Jesus shows his role as social catalyst in the original Greek sense of the word 'catalysis', the agent of a sudden breaking-up of the status quo.

He came not to bring peace, but a sword; he came to kindle a fire, to baptise with water, to make the power of the Spirit more freely available. His is not, has never been, should not ever be, the way of incremental and plodding change and shifting ground; rather, as he says elsewhere, his is the way that establishes the past and fulfils it in for the future. In doing so, he avoids the twin traps of sticking to the uninterpreted and misunderstood past, and of charging into the future without the firm foundation built by those before us.

The term status quo is often misunderstood. In this exact form, it means 'the state of things which is'; it does not mean 'the state of things as it has always been'. Quite often, a rude shock to the system is required to shift it out of the low depression into which it has sunk and stalled for a while; sometimes, the state is one of physical and material expansion but spiritual degradation. It is the case in Luke 12: this chapter mentions the fate of a rich man who had so much that he did not know where to put it, and so tore down his barns to make way for larger barns. As the story goes, that night, God required the man's soul, and so sic transit gloria mundi.

We are then enjoined to consider the ravens, who neither sow nor reap, and yet are provided for by their Father in heaven. It isn't that ravens are faithful, quiet, innocent birds; ravens are inquisitive and clever, possibly the most intelligent birds on the planet. What the message here seems to be, throughout this morning's reading, is that God gives us all certain gifts; use them wisely and it will result in a fair provision. And just as in the story of the manna in the wilderness, greed and a desire for more than what God provides results in a messy state of affairs. I like the punishment inflicted on the Israelites here: when they complained about a lack of meat (notwithstanding that God gave them quail to eat), God fed them a huge superfluity of meat till it came out of their nostrils. Beware what you wish for: you might get it!