Mad over Jesus

First camp fire of the season tonight. Good crew, and generally positive feedback on proximity. Peter pointed out that families are prone to dysfunction, micro-parish families not excepted. That means a lot of work, though I think it is precisely the work worth doing. Let us, however, broaden the Butter Test to also ask whether your relationship with another is sufficiently healthy that you can approach them with such a favor.

Mark's feedback cuts deeper: "Once you can all walk to church, then you all have to walk to work." Mark is passionate; he wants the whole thing. Capitalism is evil because it is based on greed. The Christian cannot truly accept any system involving money and middle-men, but only unmediated, small-scale systems based on relationship and community. I balk at this view, where every true Christian must be a full-blown activist, and composting, sewing, recycling, bicycling, hemp, protesting, and Jesus all go together.

I like lots of that stuff. For example, I helped start an organic produce growers cooperative, and I still love local and organic food: four days ago we put up roasted red peppers; two days ago we cleared land for an orchard, and the trees will be regional and organic; yesterday morning we put up elderberry syrup; and last night we picked up milk from our local dairy. However, running the co-op taught me that the cause of local and organic food is not my Gospel. I don't love it enough to make people mad over it.

So what do I love enough to make people mad over? Jesus, certainly. But what does that mean? How do you confront people with Jesus? A group of people is not Christian because they move to the ghetto, help kids with their homework, protest for a living wage, etc. I appreciate them, but that is not enough to make them Christian. To be Christian, a group of people has to worship Christ, explicitly, corporately, and regularly.

Now, Mark is right: to be Christian, a group of people must also strive to worship Christ implicitly in everything they do. That means trying to live out the pattern of relationships revealed in the New Testament and in the Eucharist, where we love our enemies, hate our families, and the greatest is the servant of all. But the ethic of the New Testament is interpersonal, and it does not scale cleanly. If someone slaps me on the cheek, I can turn the other easily enough. But what if someone slaps my wife on the cheek? Do we jettison the family as a system because my role as husband may perhaps conflict with my religion? Is Christian executive simply an oxymoron?

Enforcing too much systemic activism muddies the Gospel. But if a group of people worships with the Church catholic, and at the same time can actually pass the Butter Test with each other—now that is counter-cultural in a way that clearly acknowledges Jesus. That group is worthy of the name Christian. And what is more, I trust such a group to make its own decisions about how it can best contribute to God's Kingdom on a grander scale. Feed back to Chad Whitacre.