Context

The panic that I incite in pastors reflects a fundamental gap between their profit model and the necessities of redemption. Successful pastors, in modern terms, offer a transaction. The flock pays their tithes and the pastor promises them individual salvation. In contradiction of Jesus’ command to “Love God…and your neighbor…,” the compact stops and ends with the self.

John 3:16: “God so loved the world…”

It doesn’t end with you. It doesn’t even end with humanity. It embraces all of life. If humanity is the focus of the Biblical narrative, that is because we have capacities that other creatures do not have – the most important being to understand other creatures so that we can give them what they need to experience fulfilment. In other words, we love intelligently, rather than instinctually.

The errors and hypocrisy documented in the Bible arise because, unfortunately, we are ourselves creatures of instinct. We seek to survive and procreate. The predatory sexuality common in megachurch pastors has, in their logic, a Biblical justification. If we were perfect when God created us, our instincts are sacred. If they, as men of God, feel sexually aroused, that arousal reflects God’s intentions, and should be expressed.

If God is immanent in reality, then every form of knowledge reveals His glory. To escape self-seeking, we need to accept the testimony of science: we are not fallen from perfection. We are a project undertaken by God who seeks for all living creatures to be freed from the chains of selfishness. We ourselves are bound by those chains. The Bible documents our halting progress towards maturity in the expression of love.

To understand the work that I have undertaken, then, you need to see our age in the context of that larger project. I need to raise your perspectives. The individual men and women whose stories you celebrate are part of a larger tapestry. In that picture, you may confront the realization that many of them were deeply flawed. But, then, that is why you should stop seeking to justify your behavior with claims that you are emulating them, and submit to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, as Jesus commanded.

Following the inundation that destroyed the world known to the Hebrews, God commanded that the People administer their own justice. This hopeless task was institutionalized by Moses, who established the first public school system and suborned God’s authority to motivate compliance under penalty of death.

The final sacrifice of Moses was to stay on the far bank when the people crossed over into the Holy Land at Jericho. In the era of Judges, authority was not vested in kings or priests. God moved directly among the people, summoning the meek to greatness.

The decay of the priesthood was incidental, until rumblings of discontent and ambition arose within the leading men of Israel. Samuel was cultivated to counsel against the anointing of a king that would “fight our battles for us.” With prideful persistence, the leadership continued to demand a king. Recognizing that the Flood and enslavement were insufficient warning, God assented, commanding Samuel to “give them what they want.”

The shepherd boy David was a final demonstration that God hoped would turn the People to repentance. Here is their king, Saul, meant to “fight our battles for us,” cowering in his tent and promising his throne to any that would slay Goliath. None volunteered, until God sent Samuel to anoint a common shepherd boy. Another Judge, sent to remind people that reliable protection is found only in God.

Not that anyone took the lesson. No, the warriors concluded instead that God was with them in all things and would ratify the protection racket known as monarchy. In this context, David’s lyrical talents convey the psychological toll suffered by a king’s appointed successor. Paranoia, megalomania, depression: these are the costs to anyone expected to carry burdens that only God can shoulder.

That the People suffered is not unjust. Upon opening the floodgates of violence, suffering is unavoidable. Again: monarchy is always a protection racket. Only the threat of violence sustains its perceived legitimacy.

The transfer of social authority from those chosen by God to those chosen by men dominates the rest of the Bible. It is evident in the jealous posturing against Elijah in Kings, and the reframing in Chronicles of the history of the Holy Land as a celebration of royal administration. Esther epitomizes the corruption of the sisterhood, sacrificing her virtue for political power. Ezekiel, Isaiah, and the remaining prophets are lonely voices in the wind cautioning against human pride. Ezekiel, in particular, serves as a horrible representation of God’s pain, the instrument through which God designs the humiliation of Israel’s elite, and the prophet who encourages the people to pursue a personal relationship with the divine.

As in Egypt, God’s voice goes silent for 500 years before the birth of Jesus. The virgin’s paean before Elizabeth is clear prophesy. Once his mother releases Jesus, at the wedding at Canaa, to pursue his ministry, the plans he had formed with his cousin John are set into motion.

The brilliance of this campaign was superhuman. John poses as a harmless eccentric in the wilderness, eating locusts and honey and porting a camel-hair shirt. What he offered, however, was a genuine encounter with the sacred presence through the simple ritual of baptism. As Jesus built his following, John begins to preach against the legitimacy of Herod’s queen, leading to his arrest. In jail, John points his followers to Jesus before the final incitement of the queen. Her daughter’s seductive talents are used to bind Herod into consenting to the Baptist’s beheading. As Jesus mourns in the wilderness, John’s followers seek him out in their thousands, culminating in the demonstration of the loaves and fishes. Jesus is the real deal and enters Jerusalem not as leader of a small cult but of a movement of tens of thousands.

Here the elements are arrayed: two monarchical powers, a corrupt and hypocritical priesthood, and a public simmering over with anger. Jesus plays this scene with mastery, raging in the temple against corruption before leading his disciples in the Passover meal. Leaving to pray in the Garden at Gethsemane, he is betrayed and arrested. Before the priests and Pilate – the two authorities capable of selecting a king for Judea – he is asked, “Are you King of the Jews?” To which he offers a course of redemption: “You: say that I am.” They demur, and the crucifixion unfolds, though Pilate waffles weakly with a placard posted above Jesus’ head.

In the larger context, this single act serves to launch the God of Abraham to world-wide dominance through Christianity and Islam. The Jews of Israel, confident that God would support them in a contest of violence, initiated a campaign of public assassination that escalated into the decimation of a Roman garrison. Wrong move. The full power of the empire was brought against Israel. Jerusalem and its temple were destroyed, and the people scattered in exile.

Meanwhile, adherents to the New Covenant passively submitted to Roman persecution until Constantine, recognizing the organizational durability of the Church, adopted it as his partner in empire.

To fast-forward to the present day, let’s take note of some numerology. In Biblical legend, forty is the number of deprivation, while seven is the number of perfection in the service of love. Seven times forty is two-hundred eighty. I note these historical coincidences that bear witness to the continued salience of the struggle between sacred and monarchical authority in the new era.

• 280 – the birth year of Constantine, who adopted Christianity as a state religion, implicitly establishing the feudal order (royal authority comes from God).
• 560 (twice 280) – signaling the transfer of religious energy from the Church, whose last saintly pope was born circa 540, to Islam, with the prophet Mohammad born in 570. No longer would one man (the pope) be able to claim alone to represent God.
• 1120 (four times 280) – birth year of Thomas Beckett, who was martyred for opposing the ambition of Henry II to invert the feudal order by placing royal edict above God’s Law.
• 1400 (five times 280) – birth year of Guttenberg, who dedicated his printing press first to production of a Bible, implicitly declaring that everyone should form their own opinion about God.

Given this legacy, one might presume that 1960, seven times seven times forty, would be an auspicious year. But I will allow you to do your own research. Just note that July is the seventh month, and the twenty-fifth marks the midpoint of the fourth week, which is evoked in Revelation by “a time, times, and half a time.”

But the point is that we are still working through the object lesson put before the Israelites when they demanded a king. We continue to invest in institutions that centralize human authority. Those institutions may facilitate tyranny or technocracy, but the only conclusion that we can defend is that history proves that the attempt is self-defeating. We are at an impasse in which the interests of the privileged are contrary to human survival. They have mounted a rear-guard action against civil rights, economic justice, and environmental sustainability. It is now beyond human agency to secure a future of justice.

In characterizing my purpose, I draw this parallel with every lesson that God prepares for humanity. At every impasse, the faithful are told that it is impossible to love in the way that seems necessary. As disaster unfolds, they realize that the consequences of failure are so severe that they must believe and act as though they can. And, through that resolution, the grace and glory of God is revealed through them.

We are at such an impasse. What is left to you is faith.