Right vs. Left

 

I’ve had a lot of faith questions recently. I’ve been disillusioned by evangelical Christianity (my roots) and its adherence to what seems less like the gospel of Christ and more like the gospel of politics and morality. I’ve been working through my questions in therapy—writing out almost 50 different “Things that I don’t necessarily believe but that I have heard and/or believed at some point in my life and that linger in my psyche” and contrasting them with “Things that I am currently trying to believe but that are sometimes overshadowed by old, lingering beliefs.” If you’ve never written out your theological beliefs, then I encourage you to do so. It’s an eye-opening exercise.

 

I’ve also started reading two books by Richard Rohr, a Franciscan friar who founded the Center for Contemplation and Action. Contemplative Christianity is something that I began exploring in Divinity School and that I have been exploring deeper for the past decade, mostly through the concept of mindfulness—of being present right now and seeing where and how life and God are working in this moment.

 

Last night, as I was reading one of my books, “Yes, And…,” I read something that was very helpful to my disillusionment. Rohr writes about a long-standing division in Judeo-Christian tradition between the Exodus and the Leviticus/Numbers traditions. The Exodus tradition, he says, is a tradition of liberation while the Leviticus/Numbers traditions is a priestly tradition that tries to organize, control, and perpetuate the initial experience of freedom.

 

He continues to assert that while we need both traditions to hold in balance the inner experience of freedom and the outer work of holiness, we instead tend to lean one way or the other, thus creating a world of dichotomies: right or left, liberal or conservative, establishment or disestablishment, contemplative or activist. “[Both sides] really do need each other,” he writes, “but, in most of history, the priestly tradition has been in control [of] and defined religion.”

 

Did you know that the political terms right and left come from the Estates General in France? The ordinary people, most of whom were poor, sat on the left while the nobility and clergy (who upheld the priestly tradition) sat on the right. The right normally protected continuity and status quo while the left looked for change and reform. The same is true today.

 

Furthermore, much of history has been written, read, controlled, and interpreted by the right—except for “the unique revelation called the Bible, which is alternative history from the side of the enslaved, the dominated, the oppressed, and the poor, leading up to the totally scapegoated Jesus himself.”

 

The gospel of Jesus Christ is an alternative history that is much bigger than right or left or what any one tradition can hold. May we be a people about the redeeming work of Christ and seek to uphold, above all else, the liberating, life-changing, justice-love and action of God.

 

Amen.