Wednesday, December 24, 2008

What the Mass of Christ should mean

It is about hope, rebirth, renewal and life.

by StFerdIII





The story of Christ is not unique. Almost every culture has such a story – a virgin birth of a spiritual King to a poor peasant woman, a life of healing and preaching, punishment and betrayal; a death, a resurrection - the redemption of all as God's son is sacrificed so that men may be healed and free. What makes the Christ story unique is that it created an ethos and a system of belief, which in turn helped to create the modern world. Christ's message and his mass to commemorate this ethical and spiritual faith, has much to teach even the hardest secularist. The Mass of Christ is about life.

No other philosophy can match Christianity as the defender of life and hope.

We live in an age of death cults. Islam is a fascist pagan Arabian death cult which elevates the next world over this one. The eco-cult is a pagan civilisation-hating illiteracy, designed to punish life and mankind. Cultural, social and political Marxism focuses on relativism, moral equivalency, class and economic warfare, in an attempt to halt civilisation's advances and neuter life and progress. State funded abortion clinics appease feminist concerns for convenience and along with state funded eco-socialism, make the clear statement that human life is to be regarded as less important than that of animals.

The root and core of Christianity rejects the death cult, the preoccupations with hypocritical power mongering in the name of mother earth; and the murdering of innocent unborns whilst billions are spent weeping over flora and fauna. The Christian churches need to return to their roots, to focus on life, ethics, and faith and to reject the socialist-marxism which dominates current church thinking.

Christianity's spiritual program is profoundly relevant.

Christianity is not about the fantastical, the supernatural, nor the magical. It is not about economic marxism; socialism; relativism; peace at all costs; nor utopian visions of character and society. It is not about appeasement, equivalency; complete equality; nor submission to those who wish to dominate. Christianity is not concerned with quixotic ideals leading one to reject trade, globalisation, security and capital markets. Christianity in its original intention and scale, has little in common with much of modern church thought and practice.

Christianity in its original form, is a positivist theory of the spirit and soul. Nothing in Christian doctrine or early practice, discussed or was much concerned with politics, economics, and war. Christ just simply said that what is yours is yours, and what is Caesar's is his. The world outside of faith - this was the world of 'Caesar'. Christianity's audience – the poor, the female, the dispossessed, the outcast, the loser – were instructed not in temporal matters, but matters of faith and hope. It is high time that the Church return to that core audience and to its central beliefs.

Christianity at its core is a belief-system of hope, equal rights before the law, equal opportunity for all, and charity. It is these rights – along with Judaism's invocation of private property and 'thou shall not steal' – which sets the stage for civilisational development. Society and markets cannot advance and create, innovate and construct, without a moral code and a culture of laws, rules and ethical parameters.

Christianity is thus the moral code which guides even a secular modern society – whether such a society recognises this fact or not. The apocryphal stories of the destruction with fire and brimstone of Sodom and Gomorrah are not tales related to the wickedness of sin and sexual license – but simply tales trying to describe the existing ruins of cities long destroyed before the writing of the Old Testament. These cities were inhabited by people who had ignored the main tenets of Judeo-Christianity and were thus punished by God with ultimate destruction and damnation. Or so those who viewed the ruins must have thought. How could a great city be rendered a ruin otherwise? Sodom and Gomorrah represent the retribution passed onto those who reject aid to the poor, charity, equality of law and opportunity, and who war against the weak to aggrandize the pecuniary interests of the strong.

In a world of relativity and cheap populism, where earth cults, feminism, cultural marxism and Islamic intolerance and anti-modern gibberish caper and jabber across society's landscape, we would do well to remember the message of Christianity. It is not the supernatural that is important. Arguing over Christ's divinity, the risen, the miracles, the nativity story, perhaps even his very existence, misses the key point. Christ's message and that developed by his early and modern church, codified to a large degree the moral underpinnings and cultural accroutements of a civilised and successful society. Christianity then in its simplest form, is a message and a system of rebirth, renewal, fairness and equality of opportunity, and ultimately hope.

Hope springs eternal in the West, thanks to Christianity. The Christ story is one of a birth, learning, insights, death and a new beginning. Each life can follow this path many times. A person can rise, fall, rise and fall and rise again. If the insights of the church's key doctrines are understood, each renewal can form a better and stronger individual and a greater and more prosperous community.

What better way for a human to humble himself than to remember the birth of Christ, its message and the belief that hope springs eternal and that things will get better? You don't have to believe in all of the church to appreciate the fact that each person has a birth, a death and a renewal – many times in one lifetime. We pray on Christmas not for our sins past, but for our hopes of what might be, and what can come to pass.

Christianity is a philosophy of life – embedded in hope; created by redemption. What is Islam but a cult of death? What is the eco-marxist cult but a pagan group of illiterate reality haters? What other ideal expresses rebirth, renewal, and hope? Very few if any.

What philosophy leads one to create poetry such as this – poetry which some say is the art of mathematics:

.....There is no looking back;
there are no regrets.
In our newness, we are free.
In the power of God's continuing creation,
we are:
new shoots from the root of Jesse,
new branches from the one true Vine,
new songs breaking through the world's deafness.
This then is a new day.
New shoots, new branches,
new songs, new day...
[from Anne Weems, 'New Shoots']


New shoots, new branches, new songs, a new day and hope. Everyday is a new day of hope and opportunity. Christianity is relevant because it extols life and rebirth. No other philosophy does. This is why Christmas is important. This is why we should pray.

Humble yourself to the power of rebirth, renewal and hope.

Amen to that.