Alexander Riegel

This is the third in the four part series of posts that begin this site.  As suggested at the beginning of the first post, please read them as they arrive and consider each in itself.  Once the fourth post is made, I encourage you to reread them as a single unit, time permitting.

I – A Lesson in Scriptural Interpretation

II – The Foundation of the Social Gospel

III – The Meaning of the Social Gospel

IV – Personal Verification of the Foundation of the Social Gospel

III

If the social gospel is reducible to two simple phrases, namely, unconditional love and radical inclusivity, it should not be difficult to find expressions of both in the scriptural accounts of the life of Jesus.  As we consider this point, we should note that, as with proof texting, one can certainly find in the scriptures contradictory teachings and actions on the part of Jesus.  For every teaching such as “Blessed are the meek,” there seems to be a contradictory action, such as Jesus’ riotous behavior when he chased the money changers out of the temple.  What, then, are we to do when faced with such radically diverse teachings and actions on the part of Jesus?  At this juncture two things are particularly important.

First, it is important to recall that when reading the scriptures we are inevitably left to muddle through their inherent ambiguities, variations, and outright contradictions.  To complicate matters even further, we must also recall that the gospels were not written by individuals with firsthand experience of Jesus’ ministry, but by individuals who were one, two, even three generations removed from Jesus’ time.  This makes it all the more difficult to discern which scriptural records are reliable accounts of the teachings and actions of Jesus and which should be considered more suspect.

Second, in light of this it is important to bring to one’s reading of the scriptures one’s own intuitive wisdom, in order to help one discern which scriptural records are reliable accounts of the teachings and actions of Jesus and which should be considered more suspect.  What I mean by this will be clearer in the fourth post in this series, but for now I encourage you to use your own intuition in regard to what rings truest in your heart relative to the nature of the person of Jesus of Nazareth.  In other words, what teachings and what actions do you feel are most consistent with a figure that came to redeem humankind?  It is my firm belief that the use of one’s own intuition here will go a long way toward reconciling which are reliable accounts of the teachings and actions of Jesus, while at the same time avoiding the mental gesticulations one must invariably encounter when trying to reconcile contradictory accounts.

With these two things in mind, I proffer a quick summary of my own conclusions regarding what expressions there are in the scriptural accounts of the life of Jesus that demonstrate unconditional love, agape, to be his revolutionary teaching and radical inclusivity as his consequent way of being in the world.  Briefly looking at each in turn, we will see how they combine to yield the social gospel; how they call each of us to a social revolution that necessitates the universal equality and mutual empowerment and dependency of all people with one another.

For expediency in understanding the revolutionary teaching of agape in Jesus’ (and Christian) teaching, I cite here three passages, by no means exhaustive, which demonstrate what I see as the three aspects of agape that give it its revolutionary character.  Probably the most oft quoted piece of Christian scripture is John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son…”  This demonstrates the depth of agape through the highest act of sacrifice imaginable.  A second piece of Christian scripture, which points to the constancy and breadth of agape, are Jesus’ words: “A new commandment I give to you.  Love one another, even as I have loved you.”  And again, in Jesus’ words, we have what is probably the most challenging aspect of agape that he taught, namely, “You have heard it said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I say to you, love your enemy and pray for those that persecute you.”  Agape, then, especially in contradistinction to the Judaic legalism of Jesus’ day, was revolutionary in the sense that it insisted on radical new dimensions of love: radical depth, radical scope, and radical personal challenges.  Such radical new dimensions of love necessarily imply radical inclusivity.

Agape implies radical inclusivity in the sense that unconditional love transcends all boundaries.  That is, the depth of agape, the scope of agape, and the personal challenge of agape is, if Jesus’ teaching is taken seriously, a call to transcend every barrier that separates one human being from another.  Agape is a call to live not from the judgments of the mind, but within the empathic heart, where the illusory nature of boundaries is dissolved.  My favorite scriptural account of the radical inclusivity that agape implies is the case of the adulteress, whom, according to Mosaic Law, should have been stoned for her transgression.  However, when her accusers tempted Jesus to judge her on the basis of Mosaic Law, he refused to condemn her.  In case you have forgotten, the story goes like this:

Early in the morning Jesus came into the temple and hordes of people gathered about Him.  When he sat down and began to teach, the scribes and the Pharisees brought to him a woman caught in adultery.  Setting her in the center of the court, they said to Him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act.  Now the Law of Moses commands us to stone such women.  What do you say?”  (They were saying this in order to test him, in order that they might find grounds for accusing him.)  Jesus did not answer, but only stooped down and with his finger wrote on the ground.  When they persisted in asking him, he finally straightened up and said, “Let he who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”  Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.  When they heard this they began to go out, one by one, leaving him alone with the woman.  Straightening up, Jesus said to her, “Woman, where are they who would accuse you?”  She replied, “There are none, Lord.”  And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you.”

Numerous other examples may be cited that demonstrate the manner in which Jesus enacted radical inclusivity as an expression of agape, from healing people and harvesting crops on the Sabbath to eating and sleeping with outcasts.  Ironically, perhaps the apostle Paul best sums up Jesus’ social gospel when he says that, “In Christ Jesus there is neither Jew nor gentile, neither slave nor free man, neither male nor female.”  How much more radically inclusive can agape get?

In sum, Jesus’ social gospel, grounded in the revolutionary teaching of agape and expressed as radical inclusivity, is the vision of a social revolution, not only for his time, replete as it was with Judaic legalism, but for our time as well.  After all, are not we, too, still called to embody the radical new dimensions of love with which Jesus’ charged the people of his own time?  Does not agape imply, as much today as in Jesus’ time, a radical inclusivity that transcends all boundaries, e.g.: gender, race, sexual orientation… social status?  Does it not necessitate the universal equality and mutual empowerment and dependency of all people with one another?  Indeed it does.  We are still called to enact the social gospel today, as much as, if not more than, ever.  We are still called to help shape a world that reflects outwardly the inner experience of the kingdom of heaven.  THAT, above all else, is the principle sacred charge to all religious people.  For the kingdom of heaven, my friends, as a spiritual experience and a lived reality, was not merely the privileged experience of one Jesus of Nazareth.  It is universally available to all, and its implications, once it has been experienced, are obvious – as I have been arguing.  This we can verify for ourselves, to which I will speak in the next and final post in this series.

This is the second in the four part series of posts that begin this site.  As suggested at the beginning of the first post, please read them as they arrive and consider each in itself.  Once the fourth post is made, I encourage you to reread them as a single unit, time permitting.

I – A Lesson in Scriptural Interpretation

II – The Foundation of the Social Gospel

III – The Meaning of the Social Gospel

IV – Personal Verification of the Foundation of the Social Gospel

II

What are the implications of all this (discussion of scriptural interpretation) for the notion of the social gospel?  Is it also subject to the charge of proof texting, which might compromise its character as a sacred charge?  Or, does it rest on another foundation, one that more fully asserts its character as a sacred charge?  My answer to both questions is “yes.”  On one level, as with liberation theology, one can proof text a case either for or against the social gospel.  On another level, I would argue that the foundation of the social gospel precedes the scriptures in a way that other theological notions do not, giving it a unique place within religious tradition.  By virtue of this fact, it should be considered to be the principle sacred charge to all religious people (regardless of one’s tradition).

At this point I should explain what it is that I mean by the social gospel (Historically its meaning varies from my use of the phrase, but space does not permit that divergence here.).  The best way to do this is first to speak to my claim that the foundation of the social gospel precedes the scriptures.  What exactly does this mean?  To understand this we must understand the dual dimensionality of the religious life: the creedal/cultural and the spiritual.  The creedal/cultural dimension of the religious life is the dimension of the religious life with which most people are familiar.  It is comprised of scripturally based belief sets (e.g., the Nicene Creed or Pauline doctrine) as they are expressed through cultural norms (e.g., gender or sexual).  (It is this dimension of the religious life that is subject to proof texting.)  The spiritual dimension of the religious life is less familiar to most people, though most would be wont to admit this.  It addresses subjective experience, i.e., what is my relation to the greater reality when I turn inward?

It is important to understand that every religious tradition, which most people experience in the creedal/cultural dimension, has its roots in the spiritual dimension, i.e., in the inner experience of certain historical figures: Jesus, Mohammed, Moses, Buddha, and Krishna.  It is their spiritual experiences that the scriptures seek to capture and articulate, which subsequently give rise to the creedal/cultural dimension of the religious life.  So when I claim that the foundation of the social gospel precedes scripture, I am claiming that one may look to the spiritual experiences of these historical figures and find its origin there.  In other words, everything else aside, what do the scriptures reveal about their inner experiences? Granted, this is still to use scripture as our starting point, but only those aspects of it that reveal the spiritual experiences of these primary figures.  All other scriptural content, i.e., that upon which subsequent belief sets are built, is not considered relevant to this question.

That said, what do the scriptures tell us of the spiritual experiences of these historical figures?  Here I am going to use the Christian tradition as my example, because historically the social gospel finds its most concrete expression as a Christian movement (though the same theme can be found in the other religious traditions, a point I will variously express in different ways in future posts).  Thus we ask, what do the Christian scriptures tell us of Jesus’ spiritual experience?  It tells us that Jesus’ spiritual experience was that of living in the sacred dimension of the here and now; the kingdom of heaven. Thus he said: “The kingdom is close at hand;” and “The kingdom of heaven is spread out upon the earth, but people do not see it.”  However, Jesus did.  Indeed, everything he taught and every action he took expressed this experience.

We are now left to ask, what did Jesus teach?  How did Jesus act?  By answering these questions we finally get to the meaning of the social gospel, at least as I understand it.  From Jesus’ spiritual experience of living in the kingdom here and now came his revolutionary teaching of unconditional love, agape, and the radical inclusivity that it implied, especially in regard to outcasts.  The meaning of the social gospel, then, is reducible to two simple phrases: unconditional love and radical inclusivity.  I will expand upon the meaning of these phrases in my next post…

The first series of posts on this site (four in the series) are particularly important, as they explain the theme that will ground most (though not all) of the posts I will be making.  Please read them as they arrive and consider each in itself.  Once the fourth post is made, I encourage you to reread them as a single unit, time permitting.

I – A Lesson in Scriptural Interpretation

II – The Foundation of the Social Gospel

III – The Meaning of the Social Gospel

IV – Personal Verification of the Foundation of the Social Gospel

I

As the title of this blog is Asserting the Social Gospel: Reflections on Unconditional Love and Radical Inclusivity, my initial posts will elaborate upon the notion of the social gospel, at least as I understand it.  But first, a quick story about scriptural interpretation…

When I first entered Harvard Divinity School “liberation theology“ was all the rage.  The term was coined by Gustavo Gutierrez, a Latin American Roman Catholic priest, to express his belief that Jesus’ gospel demands the liberation of poverty-stricken and oppressed people (at times seeming to go so far as to promote class revolution).  This was a powerful movement in Latin America, where so many people were (and still are) poverty-stricken and oppressed.  So of course, we young Divinity School students, who were out to change the world, found the idea very intoxicating.  We began to identify with this rallying cry for liberation!  Enter Professor Levinson…

Professor Levinson was a scholar of Biblical studies with an emphasis in the Jewish Bible.  One day, as I was sitting in his class, he brought up the topic of liberation theology.  I was shocked when he claimed that there was no scriptural basis for it!  Indeed, he cited numerous contradictory scriptural references, including the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus seems to extol the virtues of peacemaking and contentment with one’s station in life – hardly a rallying cry for liberation: “Blessed are the poor in spirit”; “Blessed are the gentle”; “Blessed are the pure in heart”; and “Blessed are the peacemakers.”  I was deflated.  Could Professor Levinson be right?  Into the Scriptures I delved…

Here’s the lesson in scriptural interpretation I took from that experience.  All scriptures are semantic Rorschach blots; there is enough ambiguity, variation, and outright contradiction in them that one will discover in them whatever it is one is seeking.  In metaphorical language, “when a pickpocket meets the pope, all he sees are the pope’s pockets.”  In other words, yes, Professor Levinson was right.  There is ample scripture that seems to contradict the notion of liberation theology.  At the same time, Professor Levinson was wrong.  There is also ample scripture that seems to support it.  After all, Jesus himself quoted the prophet Isaiah, saying: “The spirit of the Lord is upon me; he has anointed me. He has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives, to restore sight to the blind and to release prisoners…“

So, one can certainly read a demand for the liberation of poverty-stricken and oppressed people, perhaps even a call to class revolution into the Scriptures, in order to support liberation theology.  And, one can use the scriptures to deny it.  It all depends upon the lens through which one chooses to look.  Indeed, one can also read into the Scriptures a recipe for personal salvation, prosperity as a sign of God’s favor, or evidence for the subjugation of minority people (e.g., slaves and women).  In academic terms this is called “proof texting.”

That said, what are the implications of all this for the notion of the social gospel?  Part II of this post will begin with this question…