I have heard so many Christians say that they desire to know God. The trouble, as I mentioned yesterday, is that we all too often want an easy way out. What we tend to want is something like a “touchy-feely” warm fuzzy (wow, a few more cliches and you will all ask me to stop it) that has little content and little committed responsibility on our part. But, what the Church Fathers, and the medieval mystics, and Protestant heroes such as John Bunyan show us is that if we truly wish to know God we must deny ourselves.
In the King James version it talks about mortifying our flesh. “For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” And, “Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry.” Notice that these are active verbs. We are being called to take action, to actively “mortify” our flesh. The problem is that there are two great mistakes that have been made in Church history with regards to this concept.
The one mistake is the one that the Protestants love to jump on. And that is the idea that equates self-torture of the body with the Biblical idea of mortification of the flesh. Self-denial and self-torture are two diametrically opposed concepts. But, the Protestant over-reaction equates the two. There is a reason why the Church prescribes such disciplines as fasting, etc. Their purpose is to help us to learn how to control our selves, how to resist the demands of our flesh, and in doing so, to begin to learn how to resist the greater and more evil demands of our flesh. Disciplines, such as fasting and regularly scheduled prayer, date all the way back to the Old Testament Law and Prophets.
But, the other mistake is that of medieval Roman Catholicism. And that is the mistake that equates more pain and suffering with a greater degree of dedication to Our Lord. Experiencing pain does not in and of itself lead to greater spirituality. Rather, it all too often leads to an arrogance and a spiritual pride which is the very opposite of the very result that people who partake of those practices wish to achieve.
As a result of these two extremes, most Christians have great difficulties when they read those Scriptures. Generally, most Christians ignore that part of the writings of Saint Paul and pretend that they do not exist because of the dissonance that they experience when they read them. But, over and over the great Christian writers remind us that we cannot ignore those, and other, Scriptures. We are called to be a people who deny ourselves.
And when one reads the great Christian writers and the lives of the saints it becomes obvious that their growth in holiness is proportional to their willingness to lose everything which a normal human being regards as important. Honor, a stable life, children, marriage, money, comfort, etc., are all thrown on God’s altar in order to win the crown of glory. In this the great saints imitate the God who:
. . . being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
But, this brings us back again to the idea of an appealing and engaging Gospel. In the light of the idea of denying oneself, what does it mean to talk about an appealing and engaging Gospel?
===MORE TO COME===
But, the other mistake is that of medieval Roman Catholicism. And that is the mistake that equates more pain and suffering with a greater degree of dedication to Our Lord. Experiencing pain does not in and of itself lead to greater spirituality. Rather, it all too often leads to an arrogance and a spiritual pride which is the very opposite of the very result that people who partake of those practices wish to achieve.
i.e. Christian One-Upmanship — “Can You Top This?”
Even the non-liturgical Protestant churches are subject to this. Except there it expresses itself not in self-torture but Who Saved More Souls, Who Spent Longest In Prayer, Who’s Missionary To Wherever, Who Spends More Time in Church, Who Speaks In Tongues. Anything that can be used for “I Do And You Don’t” comparison.
When I am in a position to speak at length with someone about the gospel, I try to always answer honestly the questions about the hard parts of following Jesus. I think that on the whole it makes it much less like a vacuum selling pitch, and may even emphasize the seriousness of the choice. The gospel isn’t a magic incantation, more like a desperate cry to God for the grace to be able to submit to his rulership. It is a fundamentally different lifestyle than self-rulership, and a huge leap from secular culture. But it is a very joyful one, and the character of God is so attractive that it is completely worth it.
Is that engaging? I don’t know, but Jesus certainly is!
I’m sure you are going to get there, Father, but the gospel is not going to be appealing or engaging to anyone who is quite happy with their life as it is, thank you very much.
“Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.” – Augustine of Hippo
“Those who are well don’t need a physician, but the sick.” – Jesus
Yes, everyone is sick, but most don’t realize it enough to do what is necessary to begin healing. Treatment for alcoholism and other addictions is a classic example of this. One must be sick and tired of being sick and tired.
These days the ‘indulgence” Gospel is very attractive. That runs the game from name-it-claim-it Christianity to the type of New Age ideas featured in the movie Eat Pray Love. Seems the idea of self-denial is a foreign concept to many today. ..unless it is used to push diet and exercise to be thin and pretty as a supermodel, of course.
My favorite passage is “I buffet my body daily…”, so I make sure I obey St. Paul and go to Luby’s for lunch. I love asceticism. 🙂
I have seen that way too often. It’s the “I am a better Christian than you” syndrome. Man may call it expressing his faith. God calls it pride. We need to remember that Jesus has only one Church. Man has divided it into denominations. As a result, the church has become weak because there is so much infighting; we have forgotten the true mission Jesus gave us. We have forgotten how to be Christ-like.
I look forward to reading more on this subject. You’re a good blog writer.
Jesus certainly is.
Pst. Ernesto, has escrito en castellano algo sobre “el evangelio indulgente”? Mándame una copia si lo has hecho, tengo interĂ©s en tus puntos de vista. Por aquĂ tambiĂ©n está entrando esa “teologĂa indulgente”, pero yo la calificarĂa más como “teologĂia permisiva”. Pst. Jorge (Coqui) Benavides.