Franklin Graham Sounded Like Christianity; Mariann Budde Sounded Like Jesus
The mere fact that these are now two distinguishable entities is disturbing. Why doesn't Christianity sound more like Jesus?
On a whim Thursday afternoon I opened Notes on my phone and typed this out:
I gave it a screenshot, uploaded it to Instagram and Facebook, and added this for the caption:
Most of you will immediately know what I mean because the above contrast is blindingly obvious.
And how devastating is that?
Why does so much of (what passes for) Christianity today sound so very, very little like what Jesus actually taught?
“Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles? ‘ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers.” -Matthew 7:22
#KeepTheChristInChristianity
Within an hour it became one of the most liked/shared posts I’ve had on social media in quite some time.
Clearly I’m not alone here.
Where’s the “Jesus” in Your Christianity?
On the surface, saying that one thing sounds like “Christianity” while another sounds like “Jesus”—with the implication being that the two sounds are dissimilar—makes no sense.
After all, isn’t Christianity founded upon Jesus? His way of life and his teachings?
Yes… and also maybe kinda no.
Or rather, while it certainly started out that way, over the subsequent 2000 years Christianity has splintered in to so many various iterations and mutations that it can be hard sometimes to find the Jesus in Christianity.
While the next sentence might sound like progressive, cranky criticism, I assure you it is not.
Christianity as is often practiced and taught today bears less and less resemblance to the initial movement inspired by a Jewish Rabbi from Nazareth.
Again, I don’t write that in a smug, patronizing way.
More as a matter of fact.
Because if you think about it of course something as complex and dynamic as a “way of life” will change over the course of two thousand years! How can a “way of life” remain consistent across myriad cultural influences and throughout the vast array of changes to human life during the last two millennia?
Virtually nothing about how we live today here in America, for example, resembles the life of a typical Jewish peasant in the first century. Ergo, implementing a certain spiritual aesthetic, system of values, and framework of practices will also be predictably different. Add to that the fact that Christianity was built upon a whole lot of word of mouth and in the context of serious opposition and competing narratives, and of course Christianity will look, sound, and feel different today than in, say, the book of Acts.
Now, this is not to say we should therefore throw our hands up in abject cynicism and declare, “Whelp, I guess we can’t know anything about anything, so what’s the point.”
It is just to be honest about how very normal it is for something to change and evolve over the course of two thousand years.
Christianity is no exception.
So yes, on the one hand it’s no surprise that Christianity in the 21st century looks, sounds, and feels different than whatever it looked/sounded/felt like two thousand years ago.
But on the other hand, don’t you think it’s also reasonable to expect there to remain some kind of connective thread that ties Christianity today to the Jesus of the Gospels?
(This ought especially be the case within iterations of Christianity where there is the belief that the Holy Spirit was perfectly guiding the early church, and perfectly assembled the Canon of Scripture, and has kept in tact the pure essence of the church since its inception.)
And yet even if you allow for human influence, error, manipulation, confusion, bad actors, and honest disagreements to alter the shape and course of the church (as I do), I would still hope that the original catalyst for our religion (aka, the life and teachings of Jesus) would remain both central-to and characteristic-of whatever variation of Christianity exists today.
In other words, if Christianity were like a box of chocolates, I don’t accept, “You never know what you’re gonna get.” The variety of shapes, sizes, and chocolatey coatings is fine, but if the center of the chocolate is not Jesus, then what are we even doing?
I’ll be the first to tell people that the teachings and the actions of Jesus were not then, nor are they now, always that clear or obvious.
That being said, sometimes things that come out of what-passes-for-Christianity today, and what-passes-for-Christian-leaders today, are so far afield of what it seems Jesus was for and about that I simply do not understand what’s happening.
I don’t think it’s too absurd to say that if all else fails in your attempt to be Christian, or in your efforts to understand Christianity, simply return to the Gospels and listen to and learn from Jesus.
No they are not perfect accounts,
no they are not always easy to comprehend,
yes they took place in a world so very different than our own,
and yet we have them.
And that’s no small thing.
We can, in other words, audit our understanding of Christianity against the life and the teachings of the one upon whom the religion was founded.
Quick analogy…
In the children’s game Telephone it makes a ton of sense that the original message gets bungled by time it reaches Kid number 20. Of course it does. That’s both the fun of it and the expectation.
But imagine if Kid number Two was allowed to write down what they heard from Kid One. And then even let’s permit Kid three to write down what they heard from Kid two.
Then let the game proceed as normal from there.
Even if those two kid’s writings were not exactly perfect replications of the message they heard, and a couple errors squeaked in, they will still no doubt be much closer to the original message (as delivered from Kid One) than what Kid number 20 will eventually hear.
Now let’s say that Kid 20 is permitted to look at the notes from Kids two and three before they announce to the group what they think the original telephone message is. It’s safe to assume that whatever Kid 20 heard from Kid 19 will be different (possibly even wildly so) from what was written down by kids two and three.
The expectation then (one would hope) is that Kid 20 would compare their current understanding of the message against the written down versions and adjust accordingly.
Obviously this analogy isn’t perfect, but the basic idea is that because we do actually have some pretty reliable accounts of the life Jesus lived, the actions he performed, and the kinds of things he taught, we should be able to periodically do an audit of our understanding of Christianity against the life/acts/teachings of Jesus.
And what my meme above pointed out is that (at least according to my ears, and the many people who liked/shared it), what we heard from Franklin Graham at the Presidential Inauguration sounded a lot like the kinds of Christianity many of us are accustomed to.
And it all also sounded very, very different from the message Mariann Budde gave at the Washington Cathedral just a few hours later.
To my ears, Budde’s message sounded very resonant to the kinds of things Jesus was about. Her words sounded like she had access to (and utilized) the written accounts of Kids two and three.
Franklin Graham’s?
Well, I’m sure Kid 20 was nodding along with delighted approval.
While Kid One was left scratching his head, mortified at how distorted his message has become.
Comparative Analysis of Graham’s Prayer and Budde’s Sermon
I’ve been working on a comparative analysis of the two prayers/messages from Graham and Budde. That will be published in a few days (for paid subscribers).
So if you’re still on a Free Subscription, now might be a fun time to make the leap to supporting this newsletter, supporting my writing, and supporting me.
More Like This?
Even before Graham’s prayer and Budde’s sermon last week I’ve been writing lately on these kinds of topics. Specifically the relationship between and differences of what it means to “be a Christian” (in the noun sense) verse “being Christian” (in the verb sense).
Check some of these out:
You say rhetorically christianity is founded on Jesus life and teachings, that is not the fundamental uniqueness of christianity.
Christianity is founded upon the person of Jesus Christ as the God man...fundamentally different from all other religions....' who do you think I am?
You are Christ the son of the Living God'
I loved the Telephone analogy Colby - it did a great job of describing how I've been thinking about it for awhile now.