“Faith is the bird that sings when the dawn is still dark.” R. Tagore
I’m not a very good Christian. I want to be. But I make enough excuses to fail. I am honest of my shortcomings. Perhaps I’m not the only one though. It seems faith and religions in many places today are just about dogmas and rituals. Colorful and gaudy to attract adherents. Good works are taunted as the level and height of the altitude of one’s piss; your public resume on how much money you donated or how caring you are of the downtrodden. Or a last vestige of desperation; church attendance rose because of the collapse of the financial system. So you only remember God when you need Him?
I guess my doubts are not so much on the faithless. They don't lie to themselves what and why they don't believe. It’s self proclaimed faithful that I doubt. I always see the analogy of today's faith in the Passion of the Christ. Not the actual death of Jesus the Christ on Mt. Calvary, but the movie. Remember when it came out? The director, a raving drunk, wife beater, and racist but a self proclaimed righteous Catholic is artistically inclined in making movies that are visually stimulating. Much like a yellow journalist, he knows how to take a short pinch of the story, present/paint it and make everyone’s emotions stir. Machiavelli says, people judge with their eyes and not their hands. Thus anyone and everyone who watched it was enamored by the colors, the sounds, the 'realism'. When that movie came out it seems everyone was praising it. People were enervated, restored in their convictions. Preachers were flocking movie theaters ushering people to watch it. Regardless of its impact, or how long that impact stayed, I find it funny how people are all of a sudden faithful because they feel guilty. I mean they’ve seen the bloody crucifix a million times, but when the saw the fake blood gushing, and other CG gore of Jesus’ day long pre-Abu Ghraib beat down and death, they want to be drawn into faith.
But it’s not even just that part. It’s the superficiality of the story. I mean in the Christian philosophy Jesus’ death is pillar of its teachings. His martyrdom is the blood spilled on others' behalf. Fine I get that, that’s why His ‘passion’ is oftentimes regaled. But that is only a fraction of what He went down here for and lived decades before His death. I mean it’s a feat (anyone thinks that being tortured and then nailed on wood as a criminal is easy, be my guest) but it totally negated years of his teachings. And in retrospect, say yeah you did feel ‘faithful’ after watching it, how could you be a good Christian if you only feel guilty into being so…yet since your faith (whatever that means) is only emotionally driven yet you don’t know how to be good (His lessons, a good decade plus of ministry skipped in the movie) how could you be ‘saved’? It’s like a fire extinguisher; how much trust you have in that tank working, it doesn’t matter if you don’t know how and won’t use it.
And this is how I see faith today. Not so much as faith in itself, but how it’s presented today. Its headlines and billboards with flashing lights. They are market produced and cash driven. Themed “Christian” motifs that either induce the ‘faithful’ to buy and to support Christian causes or simply keep as a sign of one’s participation in behalf of God and religion. It's like we're wrapped around making ourselves believe of our own salvation and justification of our qualification to gates of heaven we forgot to become the good persons we all want to be.
Thomas might have been skeptic but at least he proved himself faithful later on. My skepticism is borne of this trend. I mean we’re parading our moralities and good works yet we don’t know and won’t do what Jesus did on earth. A poor carpenter who ate with the poor, taught about faith, did good works and revolutionize how we see God. With humility, meekness and sincerity. Yet we’re parading our faith, but we’re doing so out of rituals and traditions. We attend Church so many times, bowing and praying but whatever happens to doing the things for ‘least of my brothers’? I think Jesus Christ came to live with us not only for the day of his martyrdom but as importantly: the days, the years of his teaching the proper way of being a good person.
Thomas might have been skeptic but at least he proved himself faithful later on. My skepticism is borne of this trend. I mean we’re parading our moralities and good works yet we don’t know and won’t do what Jesus did on earth. A poor carpenter who ate with the poor, taught about faith, did good works and revolutionize how we see God. With humility, meekness and sincerity. Yet we’re parading our faith, but we’re doing so out of rituals and traditions. We attend Church so many times, bowing and praying but whatever happens to doing the things for ‘least of my brothers’? I think Jesus Christ came to live with us not only for the day of his martyrdom but as importantly: the days, the years of his teaching the proper way of being a good person.
And if I become the anathema for this, well forgive me. I'm not here to be the Jesus and present the odium nor am I being holier than thou (I think I was honest with that from the beginning). But this must be the feeling of the tax collector praying next to the Pharisee. Amen.
McLovin, out.
