Recovering revelation
Living as a member of the church of atheism
December 6, 2006
Sarah weigum
One of the small pleasures in my life is discovering the origins of a common saying. The phrase, “pull out all the stops,” is probably familiar to most. It suggests putting all one’s resources to use for a certain cause or event.
Two weekends ago I attended an organ recital in the cavernous basilica of St. Joseph’s Oratory in Montreal. I actually sat in the organ loft, and as the 42 tonne instrument bellowed around me, I watched as the musician literally pulled out all the stops on the instrument’s 5 000 pipes for the grand finale.
The joy of these little moments of clarity is not that they are discoveries, but that they are recoveries. I don’t unearth new information; instead, I realize something that’s been there for a long time and that makes marvellous sense.
Occasionally, this sense of recovery manifests itself in more profound ways. In his book, The Subversion of Christianity, French theologian Jacques Ellul looks at Christianity as a process of recovering revelation. “The striking thing in the church’s history,” he writes, “is that through the tremendous perversion, when everything seems to be eaten up by termites, there have always been resurgences of truth . . . rebirth, rediscovery, and reinterpretation almost ex nihilo.”
Shafts of light have pierced the minds of theological giants, illumining them and, by extension, their culture with the “truth that has been the same for some three thousand years and has suddenly become so fresh again.” To the work of the theologians is added the effects of socio-religious movements and the prayers of saints who are hidden to all but God.
Ellul provides a picture of the Christian life as a conversation between the temporal and the eternal. The prayers of the faithful and the questions of the theologians change, but the one who hears the prayers and gives the Word remains unchanged. The role of Christians is to uncover revealed truth so that it shines forth in a way that those around them can perceive.
Patriarch Gregory III, the leader of the Greek Catholic church, spoke on this topic at a recent lecture in Ottawa. His church is based in the Middle East and its members are Arabs, sharing tribal backgrounds and cultural mores with Muslims. The church in the Middle East is the “church of Islam,” said Patriarch Gregory, noting that this statement raises eyebrows and ire among Christians. As members of the church that is both “with” and “for” Muslim people, Arab Christians can live out the truth of Christ’s incarnation before their neighbours in a way that no one else can.
Christians in the Middle East do not have an easy time of it. They suffer the effects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as much as any other group in the region. Their suffering may be even greater because, as Arabs, they do not fit in with the Jews, and as Christians, they are different than the majority of Arabs.
However, Patriarch Gregory said, immigration from the turmoil is not the answer. Furthermore, he noted that living in the seemingly safe, secular societies of the West is no less dangerous to one’s faith than living in the violence of the Middle East.
As I listened to this man of God, I wondered, “If Arab Christians are the church of Islam, does that make the North American church the church of secular atheism?” This thought startles me, for Christians have invested a great deal of energy in an attempt to oppose, convert or altogether avoid this mentality.
But what if that wasn’t our goal? What if, instead, we lived beside our neighbours, praying, hoping and working toward the well-being of our society, because our welfare is intimately connected to theirs? What if in reopening a humble dialogue with those around us, we rediscovered Christ’s revelation, the meaning of which may have been hidden from us for a while, but is waiting to be found?
And what if all this could be done while remaining rooted to those things we hold true? The banality of life buries truth in layers of ‘christianese’ so that uttering the words of faith become repugnant even to those who believe it. But what is cliché can become fiery again; what is polemical and divisive can be recast so that Christians act to unite the world.
None of this will happen, however, unless we insert ourselves into the world in such a way that they know what we believe and know that at the epicentre of that belief is a love for God and love the people he created.
Perhaps some great theologian is waiting in the wings to speak that truth in such a way that it revitalizes our fragmented generation. Perhaps some hidden saint is already praying for this to happen.
Now you go...
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