Christian tribalism, part 1: the problem with “Matrix Christianity.”

I picked up a disturbing book today, the sort you would only find on a derelict, old bookshelf in a dusty, church library, written by…we’ll call him Ludwig Churchman. This book offered nothing new in the way of thought…or really, nothing in the way of thought. But because I spend most of my study time with books that are…umm, hi, uhh…good, I was appalled at how uncritically and effortlessly he was able to restate every stupid thing that has ever subverted the radicalness of the Christian faith. One passage in particular read:

Peter said, “There is salvation in no one else” (Acts 4.12). Is that true?...How about people who have never heard of Jesus? It is not up to us to decide their fate. God alone knows how to judge them. Even they, however, if they are saved, are saved because Jesus has won the battle and has paid the price for them.

What interests me here are not the stock answers that we’ve all heard out of the mouths of Christians at some point or another but the (don’t get thrown off by this one) metanarrative from which they predictably flow. A metanarrative is the biggest story around all the other stories by which we make sense of reality. It is so big and all-encompassing that we don’t even realize it’s there, just as a fish doesn’t realize that they’re swimming in water. So, for instance, one narrative or smaller story that many Americans are especially fond of is: “People that work hard will rise to the top.” This small story is often debated, of course, but the metanarrative, the story so big that most don’t even realize it’s there, let alone debate its validity, is: “The top (a place defined by high status, power, and wealth) is a desirable place to be.”  Many devote their entire lives to this big story, and for that very reason, don’t consider that it could be any other way. Americans may be especially worshipful toward this big story, but we didn’t invent it. Blogs don’t allow enough characters to cite all the places where Jesus challenged it in his own time. We’ll just say it’s almost all he ever talked about in our gospels.

So that’s a metanarrative, now, back to this stupid book. This passage may not strike anyone as the most belligerently tribalistic that they’ve ever heard. But (aside from the fact that it’s the first thing I turned to) I cite it because it’s precisely when Christians try to be this innocuous and non-committal that the tribalism of their metanarrative becomes the most powerful. Like when someone speaks with a passive aggressive tone, what’s really disturbing is that you agree with the words that they’re saying…except, you don’t. What I mean is, and this is really devilish, the whole passage can take on a completely different meaning depending on the assumptions the reader brings to it.

There is no shortage of stupidity here, and there isn’t time to cover it all, but the real shenanigans begin with the assumptions that almost definitely undergird Mr. Churchman’s words—that he unquestioningly assumes that salvation is something so simple and straightforward that we need not discuss it beyond who’s in and who’s out, that who’s in and who’s out is decided by fate (which would seem to contradict his other assumption that it actually matters with regard to salvation whether one is a Christian), that God keeps a ledger of all the sins of humanity and refuses to balance it until someone suffers (theologians call this “substitutionary atonement” and its image of God as a “divine child-abuser” doesn’t jive well with the concept of radical grace where God just throws the ledger out entirely)—but the metanarrative I want to focus on, that the author obviously takes for granted is that God’s salvation can somehow be tapped into by certain people, namely Christians. Like when that metal thing is inserted into the back of Neo’s head, and he is suddenly “plugged in” to “The Matrix,” this author takes for granted that something has clicked somehow in the minds of Christians, and they now have some sort of special access to salvation. 

For maximum irony, he’s commenting on the book of Acts which, looking at it as a whole rather than misusing one of its verses, could be summarized as the story of the Holy Spirit running roughshod over the entire world completely uninvited from “Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (1.8). Salvation in this book is a unilateral movement of God’s Spirit. It sucks pious Pharisees and impious jail-keepers and Athenian philosophers and Roman centurions into its vortex willy-nilly. That anyone would claim any kind of special access to the Holy Spirits’ movements in Acts is absurd and unthinkable.

Just so there’s no confusion, the so-called “mainstream denominations” (Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, etc.) have subtle (and, of course, polite) ways of doing the same ledger-keeping that goes on in Evangelical circles with their more in-your-face litmus test, “Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior?” Frankly, while still very stupid, the in-your-face brand of exclusionism might be refreshing in congregations that have learned, institutionally, to demand the same thing but with a passive smile on their faces. For Lutherans, this is especially ironic since we talk so much about grace which, by definition, can’t coexist with any kind of litmus test.

This series of blogs starts with the assumption that God either saves the whole world and is therefore worthy of worship or doesn’t and isn’t. It’s intended to deconstruct this pervasive “big story” that is almost never questioned: that God’s salvation can be specially tapped into by some to the exclusion of others.