De Humanitatis – A Lenten Reflection.
- Mon 16th March 2009, 4:21 pm
Seeing the music video for the Toby Keith song “God Love Her” made me think about something that has troubled Christianity since its foundation – the humanity of her members, especially her clergy. In the video, a minister’s daughter runs off with a biker after frolicking with him first in the woods behind the church and then in the sanctuary and then being disowned by her parents. As the movie goes on, you see both couples dealing with adversity, the daughter uses the bible to help the biker when he’s down, but the parents are still having a hard time dealing with what has happened even though she’s still communicating with them. The saddest part in it is seeing the minister torn between the bible and his love for his daughter, since his post as a minister demands that he and his family live like Jesus – surprisingly similar to Bishop Geoffrey Robinson’s comment about the ideal priest needing to be like “Jesus Christ on one of his better days” all the time.
While it’s true that God calls us via baptism to a Christ-like new life free of original sin, how many of us can actually get there in this life? I’d wager that nobody can truly get there and if they tell you they can, odds are they’re smoking crack/cocaine laced with incense or some other illicit substance. Since this is the case, we need to find a way to deal with and tolerate humanity in the community of believers and among clergy, since the way we’re going now in nearly all flavors of Christianity cannot be maintained.
As the old cliché goes, “to err is human, to forgive, divine.” By that standard, our record as new creations from our baptism is actually quite shabby. In early Christianity for example, the notion was that if you sinned after you were baptized, you were eternally condemned, for the conversion it involved was a one time deal. That is why often in early Christianity, people did not get baptized often until they were on their deathbeds and in no danger of sinning. As Augustine tells us, his mother knew that the life he would lead as a normal young Roman would be utterly incompatible with salvation, so to protect him and allow him salvation, she did not get him baptized, but rather prayed for his conversion. Eventually, after a lot of trauma in his life, he did get baptized and eventually became a bishop – a post he did not seek, yet handled as best he could.
Once people started getting baptized as infants, per Augustine’s theology and continued being human, the sacrament of Penance/Reconciliation became necessary. Starting as a form of spiritual direction in Medieval monasteries, it eventually became available for all as a full blown sacrament, allowing people a way to start over on the road to this kind of perfection. In practice however, it ended up being another mechanism for punishment and the judging voice of the church came through all the louder in this sacrament and salvation became a game.
Far more insidious is the fact that clergy in all flavors of Christianity are held these days to the ancient standard, which Bishop Robinson very clearly describes. This is further reinforced by a mistranslation of a phrase in the letter to the Hebrews into Latin. The correct translation is that certain people are chosen to receive power from the almighty to serve as clergy. The mistranslation is that certain people are taken up away from the people to receive this power. The practical upshot of this is that they’re expected to loose their humanity.
As damning as the problem has been for catholic clergy, it’s often just as bad if not worse for Protestant clergy. In Protestant circles as well as Eastern Orthodox clergy it’s especially insidious because these priests have families who are expected to toe the line, often with disastrous psychological results. A few years ago in the southeastern US, a minister’s wife murdered him, took their children and ran. The reason: he had not been able to cope with being a minister and took it out on his wife in the form of sexual abuse. Additionally, the children of ministers often have the reputation of being problem children – mostly because of the severe pressure to conform and play the part that they are brought up under. As a result, they often rebel in very public and often scandalous ways. Considering all of the damage that this phenomenon has done to Christianity, enough is enough.
One thing Dad, an ex Jesuit impressed upon me is that priests, and by extension other clergy, are people too and never stop being people when they are ordained. People as such are flawed. Despite our baptism, that part of us never ceases. Because of that, we need to allow ourselves to be human and not be ashamed of it. In an earlier post, Kathy talks eloquently about giving up things during Lent. One thing we should give up is this attitude about our clergy needing to be at the same level as Christ himself as it’s not healthy. Even further, we need to allow ourselves as humans some slack. It’s a given that we’re going to sin and that our sins are going to have an impact on others with consequences. That means we need to give clergy the space to be human and not be too hard on ourselves when we make mistakes despite the best of intentions. In the movie “Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves” Azeem, played by Morgan Freeman says “there are no perfect men in this world, only perfect intentions.” These are indeed sage words to live by. They leave us free to aspire to greatness and to the more perfect life God gives us, but recognize that we are human and have our faults and imperfections, and that in the end, its going to be okay. We are redeemed by Christ as we are…no more, no less – which is a true miracle.
God Love Her (Toby Keith Via YouTube)
