Easter
April, 2007
Fr. Andrew Walmisley

Alleluia, Christ is risen!

Early last week, Anderson Cooper on his 10:00 news show had a feature he called, “What is a Christian?” Because I've always wanted to know exactly what a Christian is, I watched the show with rapt interest. He, first of all, had a piece about a newly opened $27 million museum of Creationism somewhere, I think, in Arkansas. The camera ranged over high-tech dioramas of the Garden of Eden, replete with both modern animals, as well as nodding, roaring, toothy dinosaurs – the idea being, of course, that evolution is bunk and all the creatures that have ever existed were made by God and put into the garden 6,000 years ago.

There is proof because there are some dinosaur bones that haven't fossilized. Sadly, the reason the dinosaurs aren't with us today is because they were just too big to fit on Noah’s Ark. The one great concession to progressive ideas was that Adam and Eve, who cavort in this garden with the dinosaurs aren’t blond. Hmm – So this is what a Christian is.

Anderson then interviewed a scientist, who had always been an agnostic until he went to medical school and studied the human body. The wonder of genetics, in particular, led him on a spiritual journey and he became a believer (in what, we are never told), one who reconciles, like most of us, both Genesis and the Big Bang through the understanding that God’s creative love and power function in and through natural processes. Despite the fact that a shimmering crucifix came in and out of focus every time the scientist spoke of his spiritual journey, neither Jesus, nor the Christian Faith, was mentioned once. Somehow, in this context it seemed like that might have been a little much, or perhaps bad taste. What we had instead was nice understanding of a Higher Power who set the big ball in motion, the Being who explains the gaps in our scientific understanding. So this is what a Christian is.

Before I finally turned it off in exasperation, I witnessed the debate between a prominent atheist activist and a spokeswoman for one of those organizations like the Christian Coalition. As usual, the atheist, who attacked the assertion that Creationism should be taught as a scientific theory alongside evolution, was by far the more attractive and compelling person. The “Christian” woman smiled beatifically and patronizingly as she argued on behalf of the Book of Genesis as the pre-eminent source for scientific knowledge. The scary part is that they said that half the population of the US agrees with her. I guess, then, that is is what a Christian is. Even scarier is the fact that Anderson Cooper was implying in this entire piece that the world is divided somehow between Christians and people who actually think rationally. Even the scientist, whom I guess was probably some kind of progressive Christian, dare not utter that terible word “Christian.”

So, what is a Christian?

I would like to start by saying that being a Christian isn’t really about believing at all! How preposterous you might say: of course it’s about believing; it’s a whole belief system.

And I will respond that it isn’t at all a belief system. Anderson Cooper, or at least his producers, got it totally wrong in imagining that you can define Christian Faith in terms of your position on how the earth came into being, just as biblical literalists are also wrong in defining the Faith in those terms. Nor can we say that Christian Faith is determined by your position on the tenets of the Nicene Creed or the Prayer Book Catechism.

Certainly, we can’t claim that Christian Faith is manifested through some kind of moral purity, as many today would have us believe. In many circles today, it seems that Christian identity is determined by the degree to which people deny same-sex marriage or a woman’s right to choose and by very little else. At the other end of the scale, we can’t claim that a Christian is one who stands for social justice and compassion because there are plenty of non-Christians who do (in fact, probably many more than Christians!). No, Christian Faith is neither belief system nor a moral stance on specific issues.

So what is a Christian? Of course, today is Easter: it is about believing in the Resurrection of Jesus! But here's something very confusing: you can believe in the resuscitation of Jesus’ body, yet still not be a faithful Christian, and you can have doubts about the traditional teaching on this and be one! And the reason is because Christian Faith is not about what we believe: it is about the disposition of our hearts. It is a relationship more than a belief system or set of morals.

This most glorious of all days defines who we are more than what we believe. A community of Hope came into being this day, a phoenix rising from the ashes of despair. Their Lord had died a cruel death, blasting, not only the disciples’ aspirations of personal and national glory, but their faith in the old order as well. We will never know for sure what really happened at that tomb, or in that garden, or in that Upper Room, but we do know that a hope-driven Body arose with a new vision of God rooted in love, not law or right belief; and a new understanding of community based on servanthood, not oppression. As I’ve so often said before, that motley crew of disciples were simply bashed by divinity three days after Good Friday. They had a multitude of experiences and talked about it in countless different ways. And that’s essentially what the entire New Testament and everything in Christian theology has been ever since: a reflection and commentary on the experience of Resurrection!

So, what is a Christian? A Christian is a person who is defined by Easter; who dwells in a community of hope that is nothing less than the Risen Body of Christ, whose mission is to hope, to Resurrection in and for the world. And hope isn’t just wishful thinking and it certainly isn't just believing that we are going to heaven when we die! It's not, in fact, about any doctrinal belief at all – it is a life lived in the light and life of Christ. For hope to be true, it must be lived out in the face of all that corrupts and destroys the creatures of God.

Even though we may despair in the face of the pain and evil of this world, the Christian is a person who in Christ actually shares in the work of eliminating that evil to build God’s reign of justice and compassion here and now. The Iraq War makes us feel powerless and desparate, but we can bring hope to birth through striving for peace. Global Warming makes us anxious and pained about the world our children will inherit, but we can make hope real by changing the way we live and by struggling against the political forces that are enriched by kowtowing to the industries that benefit from the production of greenhouse gases. Oddly, much of the violence, discrimination, and oppression in our world today is created by religious people who have a vision of God that is not founded on compassionate love. As a Resurrection people, we are also called to bring hope alive where religion brings oppression and despair. And this may be our greatest challenge of all.

In short, to be a Christian means not believing anything at all In terms of “figuring it all out” intellectually; nor is it about understanding the origin of things; nor is it about “being good.” Being a Christian is claiming our identity as the Risen Body of Christ and, like those earliest disciples, launching forth to living hope for a world that is literally dying for it.