True Theology?

One of the stories collected by a popular story-teller in India goes something like this: Once a parachutist found himself caught up in a storm, and he was swept off several kilometers away from his original destination.

He landed on the top of a tree, and was only happy his life was saved.

He saw someone passing by, and called out to him and asked, "Sir, can you tell me, where I am?" Came the answer, "You are on the top of a tree."

The parachutist said." Are you a theologian?"

At this the other man was simply wonder-struck.

He asked the parachutist. "Yes I am, but how do you know that?".

The parachutist replied. "Oh that is easy. Because what you said is correct, but useless!"
Theology can state many correct things, and yet become quite useless and even ridiculous when it fails to identify its topos, its location.

A general theology would be a theology on the top of a tree, in the clouds.

That is why every theology has to be really located, has to be contextual.

This is what the experiences in our Third World societies continue to impress upon us.

All true theology can only be partial.

Paradoxically, we can say that, precisely because the Ultimate Reality is total, all our theology can only be partial. This is not something new. In fact it has always been so.

But the difference is that certain theologies claimed to be total theologies are unaware of the fact that they were only universalizing what has been a particular, historically and culturally limited experience.

Here I would like to recall an experience narrated to me by a friend from Nepal who is an expert also in Buddhism.

He took a group of theology students to a Buddhist monastery.

After the chief monk spoke, the young students were vying with each other in putting critical questions to the monk.

One of them argued this way: If Buddhism teaches that desire is the root cause of all suffering and that we should free ourselves from desires, then, there will still remain at least one desire the desire not to have desires. Perfect logic, of course! But the response of the experienced monk was simple: "This means, my friend," said the monk, you are not yet ready for Enlightenment."

We need to first walk a bit on the path to experience and understand it.

This is how every authentic theology needs to begin.

But where does this path lie?

Life is today the path on which we encounter God, and it is in walking on the path of life in a determined context that true contextual theology takes flesh and bone.

Wedding at Cana

Quakers say that God has nothing else but you;
only you -- that's what God has.

This insight has to penetrate deeply.
Jesus Christ. 

The Buddha.
The great 'yes' sayers.

And so, was Mary the Mother of Jesus.
Another great 'yes' sayer.

She's not the pathetic, long faced, woman the Christian artists make her out to be.

Look in the Bible.

There was this feast. A wedding feast.

Everyone was making merry and then- oh no!- they run short of wine.

Wine. the stuff that flows and that which makes Bacchus dance.

If Mary was the sanctimonius, 'no-sayer' and spoil-sport,
the first ever recorded miracle of Jesus would never have happened!


Mary was no 'Naga Mother against Alcoholism'!
She goes up to her son, taps him on the shoulder and says
'They have no wine.' 

Just like any mum would tell her son. (And that's enough of a hint that she wants him to do something about it!)

Jesus, just like the playful fellow that he is, teases her
"Woman, why do you bother me, what can i do about it?"

Mary probably sees the twinkle in her son's eyes.
She tells the servants of the house. 'Do whatever he tells you."

And Jesus asks them to fill the wine jars with water.
And to take a sampling to the Chief steward of the feast.

The guy in charge of the booze takes a sip.

And the steward is amazed.
He tells the servants, "Where have you been keeping this good stuff?'

"Usually the best wines are served first
and when everybody is a bit sozzled, you roll out the inferior stuff.
But you chaps have kept the best wine for later!"

What better example of the fun-loving, yes-saying nature
of Jesus Christ and his Mother.

Yet , it's so sad that the so-called 'pious Christians' 

have taken the exuberance of the gospels
and twisted them the into a long-faced, painful, hypocritical religion

of enforced piety

of mumbling beads

of a spurious sense of  'holiness'

and there's a 'nay-sayer' at every turn.

Some notes on Lent

Believe it or not, Lent was never observed by Christ or His apostles.

He commanded them, “Go you therefore, and teach all nations…teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:19-20).

Jesus never commanded them to observe Lent or Easter.

He did, however, command them to keep Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread.
In fact, during His last Passover on earth, Christ gave detailed instructions on how to observe the Passover service. He also instituted new Passover symbols (John 13:1-17).

Notice what Alexander Hislop wrote in his book The Two Babylons: “The festival, of which we read in Church history, under the name of Easter, in the third and fourth centuries, was quite a different festival from that now observed in the Romish Church, and at that time was not known by any such name as Easter…That festival [Passover] was not idolatrous, and it was preceded by no Lent. ‘It ought to be known,’ said Cassianus, the monk of Marseilles, writing in the fifth century, and contrasting the primitive [New Testament] Church with the Church of his day, ‘that the observance of the forty days had no existence, so long as the perfection of that primitive Church remained inviolate.’”

Lent was not observed by the first century Church!

It was first addressed by the church at Rome during the Council of Nicea in A.D. 325, when Emperor Constantine officially recognized that church as the Roman Empire’s state religion.
Any brand of Christianity that held to doctrines contrary to the Roman church was considered an enemy of the state.

In A.D. 360, the Council of Laodicea officially commanded Lent to be observed.

Originally, people did not observe Lent for more than a week. Some kept it for one or two days. Others kept it for 40 consecutive hours, falsely believing that only 40 hours had elapsed between Christ’s death and resurrection.

Eventually, it became a 40-day period of fasting or abstaining from certain foods.
“The emphasis was not so much on the fasting as on the spiritual renewal that the preparation for Easter demanded. It was simply a period marked by fasting, but not necessarily one in which the faithful fasted every day. However, as time went on, more and more emphasis was laid upon fasting…During the early centuries (from the fifth century on especially) the observance of the fast was very strict. Only one meal a day, toward evening was allowed: flesh meat and fish, and in most places even eggs and dairy products, were absolutely forbidden. Meat was not even allowed on Sundays” (Catholic Encyclopedia).

From the ninth century onward, Lent’s strict rules were relaxed.
Greater emphasis was given to performing “penitential works” than to fasting and abstinence.
According to the apostolic constitution Poenitemini of Pope Paul IV (Feb. 17, 1966), “abstinence is to be observed on Ash Wednesday and on all Fridays of the year that do not fall on holy days of obligation, and fasting as well as abstinence is to be observed on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday” (Catholic Encyclopedia).

Today, Lent is used for “fasting from sin and from vice…forsaking sin and sinful ways.”
It is a season “for penance, which means sorrow for sin and conversion to God.”
This tradition teaches that fasting and employing self-discipline during Lent will give a worshipper the “control over himself that he needs to purify his heart and renew his life.”

God did not design fasting as a tool for penance, “beating yourself up” or developing will power: “Is it such a fast that I have chosen? A day for a man to afflict his soul [fast]? Is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Will you call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord? Is not this the fast that I have chosen? To loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke? Is it not to deal your bread to the hungry, and that you bring the poor that are cast out to your house? When you see the naked, that you cover him; and that you hide not yourself from your own flesh?” (Isa. 58:5-7).

God’s people humble themselves through fasting in order to draw closer to Him—to learn to think and act like Him—to live His way of life in all things.

Lent’s Ancient Roots

Coming from the Anglo-Saxon Lencten, meaning “spring,” Lent originated in the ancient Babylonian mystery religion.
“The forty days’ abstinence of Lent was directly borrowed from the worshippers of the Babylonian goddess…Among the Pagans this Lent seems to have been an indispensable preliminary to the great annual festival in commemoration of the death and resurrection of Tammuz” (The Two Babylons).

Tammuz was the Messiah of the Babylonians—a counterfeit of Jesus Christ!

The Feast of Tammuz was usually celebrated in June (also called the “month of Tammuz”).
Lent was held 40 days before the feast, “celebrated by alternate weeping and rejoicing.”
This is why Lent means “spring”; it took place from spring to early summer.

The Bible records ancient Judah worshipping Tammuz: “Then He brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord’s house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz” (Ezek. 8:14-15).

This was a great abomination in God’s eyes!

But why did the church at Rome institute such a pagan holiday?

“To conciliate the Pagans to nominal Christianity, Rome, pursuing its usual policy, took measures to get the Christian and Pagan festivals amalgamated, and, by a complicated but skillful adjustment of the calendar, it was found no difficult matter, in general, to get Paganism and Christianity—now far sunk in idolatry—in this as in so many other things, to shake hands” (The Two Babylons).

The Roman church replaced Passover with Easter, moving the pagan Feast of Tammuz to early spring, “Christianizing” it.

Lent moved with it.

“This change of the calendar in regard to Easter was attended with momentous consequences.
It brought into the Church the grossest corruption and the rankest superstition in connection with the abstinence of Lent” (The Two Babylons).

Before giving up personal sins and vices during Lent, the pagans held a wild, “anything goes” celebration to make sure they got in their share of debaucheries and perversities—what the world celebrates as Mardi Gras today.

Christ Follower vs Christian 4

Christ Follwer vs Christian 3

Christian vs Christ follower 2

Christian vs Christianity

Somebody came up to me once during a conference and asked, "What about 'Our Lady of Fatima'? What do you think of her?”

When I am asked questions like that, I am reminded of the story of the time they were taking the statue of Our Lady of Fatima on an airplane to a pilgrimage for worship, and as they were flying over the South of France the plane began to wobble and to shake and it looked like it was going to come apart.
And the miraculous statue cried out, "Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us!"
And all was well.
Wasn't it wonderful, one "Our Lady" helping another "Our Lady"?

[THE FIRST PICTURE IS OUR LADY OF FATIMA, THE SECOND IS OUR LADY OF LOURDES, ABD THE THIRD OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE]

There was also a group of a thousand people who went on a pilgrimage to Mexico City to venerate the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe and sat down before the statue in protest because the Bishop of the Diocese had declared "Our Lady of Lourdes" patroness of the diocese! They were sure that Our Lady of Guadalupe felt this very much, so they were doing the protest in REPARATION for the offence.

That's the trouble with religion, if you don't watch out.

[NOTE for non-Catholics: The three representations are the three different times in Church history where Our lady, that is Mary, the Mother of Christ appeared to devout children, urging them to pray for the well being of the world.... Now if all three are representations of the same person ....]

DANGER OF RELIGION

The danger of what religion can do is very nicely brought out in a story told by Cardinal Martini, the Archbishop of Milan.

The story has to do with an Italian couple that's getting married.
They have an arrangement with the parish priest to have a little reception in the parish courtyard outside the church.

But it rained, and they couldn't have the reception, so they said to the priest, "Would it be all right if we had the celebration in the church?"

Now Father wasn't one bit happy about having a reception in the church, but they said, "We will eat a little cake, sing a little song, drink a little wine, and then go home."

So Father was persuaded.

But being good life-loving Italians they drank a little wine, sang a little song, then drank a little more wine, and sang some more songs, and within a half hour there was a great celebration going on in the church.

And everybody was having a great time, lots of fun and frolic.

But Father was all tense, pacing up and down in the sacristy, all upset about the noise they were making. The assistant pastor comes in and says, "I see you are quite tense."

Of course, I'm tense. Listen to all the noise they are making, and in the House of God!, for heaven's sake!"

"Well, Father, they really had no place to go."
I know that! But do they have to make all that racket?"





Well, we mustn't forget, must we, Father, that Jesus himself was once present at a wedding!"

Father says, "I know Jesus Christ was present at a wedding banquet, YOU don't have to tell me Jesus Christ was present at a wedding banquet! But they didn't have the Blessed Sacrament there!!!"


You know there are times like that when the Blessed Sacrament becomes more important than Jesus Christ.

When worship becomes more important than love, when the Church becomes more important than life.
When God becomes more important than the neighbour. And so it goes on. That's the danger.

To my mind this is what Jesus was evidently calling us to -- first things first! The human being is much more important than the Sabbath.. Doing what I tell you, namely, becoming what I am indicating to you, is much more important than Lord, Lord.

But your mullah is not going to be happy to hear that, I assure you.
Your priests are not going to be happy to hear that. Not generally. So that's what we have been talking about.


Spirituality. Waking up. And as I told you, it is extremely important if you want to wake up to go in for what I call "self observation." Be aware of what you're saying, be aware of what you're doing, be aware of what you're thinking, be aware of how you're acting. Be aware of where you're coming from, what your motives are. The unaware life is not worth living.

[THIS POST IS AN EXTRACT FROM 'THE UNDISCOVERED SELF' BY ANTHONY DE'MELLO SJ]

NOTE: THE 'BLESED SACRAMENT' is the sacred bread kept in the Catholic Church that represents the Divine presence of Jesus . A lamp burns beside it or in front of it. For Catholics, this is the most sacred presence of the Lord, and it is venerated.

Aggressive Born Again Christians

I think 'Born Again' Christians
are fine if they limit themselves
to the fact of their so-called rebirth.

The problem with all converts
[and the 'born again' kind are converts]
is that they have to prove themselves
to their adopted communities.
They also have to show their former
Co-religionists that they have made the 'correct' choice

Look at what a nice way of life
Jesus Christ lived
Non-conformist, priest-baiting,
Commune-loving, wine-making,
No other commandment but love
And then came along Paul of Tarsus
A 'Roman-Jew' – that was quite an oxymoron
So the chap has to prove that he's more roman than the Romans
And more Jewish than his other Jews
So he's this great persecutor.

And suddenly, on the Road to Damascus
He'd converted.

That was the end of the teachings of Jesus
And the beginning of Christianity.
The fellow took a simple, everyday, workingman's
view of life
and shoved Peter the Fisherman in the shadows.

The Born again 'Christian' view really means the views of Paul of Tarsus

End of story