True Radicalism

True radicalism

In equating God's cause and man's cause, God's will and man's well-being, service of God and service of man, and in the resultant relativizing of law and cult, of sacred traditions, institutions, hierarchs, it becomes clear where Jesus stands within the quadrilaterial of  establishment, revolution, emigration and compromise.  It becomes clear why he cannot be classified either with the ruling classes or with the political rebel, either with the moralizers or those who have opted for silence and solitude.  He belongs either to right nor left, nor does he simply mediate between them.  He really rises above them;  above all alternatives, all of which he plucks up from the roots.  This is his radicalism; the radicalism of love which, in its blunt realism, is fundamentally different from the radicalism of ideology. 

It would be completely false to connect this love only with great deeds and great sacrifices;  for example, in particular cases, a necessary break with relatives, renunciation of possessions in particular circumstances, even perhaps a call to martyrdom.  In the first place and for the most part it is a question of behavior in ordinary life;  who is first to greet the other, what place we are to seek at a feast, whether we are quick to condemn or judge compassionately,  whether we strive for absolute truthfulness.  Just how far love goes particularly in ordinary life can be seen under three headings which serve to define this radical love in a very concrete way,  as it exists between individuals or between social groups, nations, races, classes parties, Churches.

a.  Love means forgiving;  reconciliation with one's brother comes before worship of God.   There is no reconciliation with God without reconciliation with one's brother.  Hence the petition of the Our Father; forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us [That's the Catholic translation from the Greek, the general translation is "forgive us our debts . . ." if I'm not mistaken. though I doubt we are supposed to interpret that in strictly economic terms.]  This does not mean that God expects special efforts from man to obtain forgiveness.  It is sufficient for man to turn confidently to God, to believe and accept the consequences for his belief.  Fir if he himself is dependent on forgiveness and has received it,  he should be a witness of this forgiveness by passing it on.  He cannot receive God's abundant forgiveness and for his own part refuse a slight forgiveness to his fellow man,  as the parable of the magnanimous king and his unmerciful servant clearly explains. 

It is typical of Jesus that readiness to forgive has no limits;  not seven times, but seventy-seven times, that is, constantly, endlessly.   And it is for everyone, without exception.  In this context likewise the prohibition on judging is typical of Jesus,  again in contrast to the general Jewish theory and practice.  The other person is not subject to my judgment.  All are subject to God's judgment. 

Jesus' requirement that we should forgive is not to be interpreted judicially.  Jesus does not mean that there is a law requiring us to forgive seventy-seven times but not the seventy-eighth time.  It is an appeal to man's love;  to forgive from the beginning and constantly anew. 

I got banned from a Youtube comment stream on the pirated posting of the Rachel Maddow show last night when in response to some totally off topic atheist anti-Christian blather by some typical "Freedom from Religion" barroom atheist types.  I said something like,  "Do to others what you want to be done to you, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the prisoner, heal the sick, etc. What's not to love about that?"   before speculating that they were Putin style trolls who were trying to gin-up one of the things that makes "the left" so unpopular to the loss of  "the left" in American politics.  What they push is proven ballot-box poison.  I think the moderator was confused, so may of them are suckers for the ideology of the play-left instead of real thinkers about reality. 

As Hans Kung says, the radicalism of Jesus is true radicalism, not just a recasting of the vulgar materialism of the wealth and power establishment with a little blather about a future worker's paradise to gull the susceptible and to get them onside.  Sort of like how the wealthy slave-owners, rich merchants and lawyers talked about All men are created equal and endowed with certain rights to get poor men to fight their revolutionary war before they pulled back on those egalitarian notions in so far as they dared to pull them back.  It was by no means certain that the poor men who had just thrown off British rule would not realize that they could impose full equality on the wealthy class at that time. I think that accounts for any reason that the notions of God-given equality and rights in the Declaration of Independence, the foremost document in the consciousness of Americans, as Americans, at that point, are retained at all in the Constitution.   And most of that notion is steeped in the common assumptions contained in the Mosaic Law and the Gospel of Jesus.  Deism may have been all the rage in the late 18th century wealthy, educated elite*(though I think that is exaggerated enormously by later anti-Christian propaganda) but it's clear that Christianity was a stronger force in the more general population.  

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Constant and universal forgiveness, I told you the Gospel becomes ever more radically a program the more you really listen to the words of Jesus and those who listened to him, it is almost impossible to imagine actually being able to carry out that commandment in the terms it obviously was meant to be taken, as a real obligation to do that in daily, human life.  Though it is clear that the rain falls on the bad as well as on the good (contrary to what many contemporary people unassociated with agrarian life might read that as, the rain was a good thing, I note as I am praying for enough of it on my garden, right now) that God doesn't withdraw the breath of life from those who are engaged in evil, not even as they do so, in most cases.  The radicalism of Jesus seems to me to be the ultimate radicalism that no ideological construction can approach.   It is too radical, not a rejection or failure of radicalism.  It may be too radical to be put in terms of human governments - "my kingdom is not of the Earth" - but if you reject it you are cutting egalitarian democracy, any political ideology that aspires to be good, to produce a decent life for all, off from not only its most potent source, the thing that can really power it, in view of the impressive failure of other framings of reality from even producing much in the way of that good, I think it's quite probably it is the only place we're ever going to get it from. 

And we've got two more of Kung's headings of how far this radical love taught by Jesus goes. 

*  Getting shut of the requirement to provide for the least among them certainly among the strongest motives for them to get rid of Christianity, then as, no doubt,in the generally affluent modern atheists who found my question on Youtube unacceptable.  Though the nominally "Christian" establishment has always been at pains to distract or cover up those far more obviously made requirements on their wealth, probably since the time when Constantine co-oped the radical Jesus movement.