From Green to Gandhi

By David Kitchingman in All Sorts

searching for the authentic Jesus

From Green to Gandhi

I have Freeview at home, but I haven‟t yet summoned up the dedication required to tune in to the Parliament TV channel. So I missed an historic speech in the Address-in-Reply debate in December. Even the mainstream media pretty well glossed over it, but at least four individuals have spoken up on the significance of the speech by the co-leader of the Green Party, Dr Russell Norman.
My first alert came from a fellow member of the Methodist Liberal Society, Michael Dymond, who passed on the text and video link. He added that he had been moved to tears by the spirited relevance and power of Russell Norman‟s words.
Next came the cautious political commentator, Colin James, under the caption, "Christian values seen as not just for believers" (ODT,
27.12.11). He began by saying, "It can at times take an atheist to remind us of some of the true messages of Christmas".
Then I spotted "Passing Notes" by Civis, headed: "Norman‟s address deserves attention" (ODT, 7.1.12). I‟m not at all keen on anonymous columns or editorials but at least Civis was open about not having voted for a Green candidate or for the Green Party. Yet he began his own assessment by saying, "It [the Address] has been described as „the best ever Christmas sermon preached by an atheist‟".
Finally, there was a "Faith and Reason" column by Ian Harris, headed: "Values for all to share" (ODT, 13.1.12). Harris suggested that "there was much for Christians and non-Christians to learn from the wisdom of political leader Dr Russell Norman", adding that "unlike many who profess atheism, [Norman] was open enough to find much good in Christianity".
So what did Norman say? You could read the full text at http://inthehouse.co.nz/node/11150, but here are a few of his points at the beginning of the speech:
"...The story of the incarnation of God in a baby born in a stable is remarkable even to me an atheist... It‟s a story about that god decreeing that...freedom and equality must characterise life here on earth... I‟m not a Christian and there is not historical certainty about the records in the Christian Bible. But what I admire about the Christmas story is that it speaks to values I share... Mahatma Gandhi said: „I believe that Jesus belongs not only to Christianity but to the entire world, to all races and to all people.‟ Gandhi was right. The hopes and values Jesus Christ articulated during the course of his short life are too important to belong only to Christians. They belong to us all: believers and non-believers alike... I identify with the Christianity that teaches love and compassion towards each other, especially the most vulnerable... I identify with the Christianity that demands we live with truth and justice between one another... I identify with the Christianity that teaches an awe and respect for the natural world... Those values of love, generosity, and a reverence for nature should not sound so out of place in this Parliament. But the talk in here is dominated by a different kind of worship - one of economic growth at all costs..."
He went on to propose some of the concrete implications of what he called "applied Christianity". But critical as these are, I want to focus on the claim from Norman and Gandhi that Jesus belongs to believers and non-believers alike. There is an aspect to this that is both neglected and distorted by most Christians.
I begin by hazarding a guess as to how most Christians and churches would respond to such statements as Gandhi in his time and now Norman have made. The immediate reaction, before any articulated comment, would be one of satisfaction at what is perceived as a compliment, followed by a comfortable sense of security in the knowledge that for those within the faith the picture is even clearer, even more compelling. In fact, so the conviction goes, the picture is only perfect from within the Church.
There is, of course, much to support the assumption that the Church, the Bible, and Christianity are the conduits through which the Jesus legacy has been transmitted. There is ample support for it in the New Testament texts themselves, which after all were a product of the early, if not exactly the primitive, Church. Yet scattered here and there among them are ample hints (I‟m sure you can think of some) to suggest that a closed shop mentality runs the risk of disguising the authentic Jesus.
All that we can safely say within the Church is that we own the most venerable and prevailing version of Jesus. That is not quite the same as owning Jesus altogether, and if it were, it would be a
denial of his free spirit. When Gandhi adopted passive resistance he picked up from under the noses of the British colonial power a trait of Jesus that had been smothered by western Christendom.
So too, in the 19th century, much earlier than Gandhi, Te Whiti and Tohu employed similar tactics at Parihaka in Taranaki. Nothing in my childhood church life in New Plymouth gave me the slightest inkling of that particular Jesus influence, yet, with little thanks to the Church, the reverberations of it are still to be felt. Echoes sounded on Waitangi Day this last week during National Radio interviews with Taranaki Maori.
While Russell Norman is likely to remain an atheist, he has, in his own way, made a leap of faith to identify with the hopes and values of the particular Christianity he caught a vision of at Christmas. But it takes two to tango. It will take a giant leap of faith in the other direction for Christians to identify with a hope-filled and value-filled belief-free, Jesus-inspired commitment that struggles to be born all around us. Jesus belongs to us all: believers and non-believers alike. Are we capable of getting our heads around that?
So far, not so good. But if, without burning our bridges to the glorious Gospel story, we could be bold enough to contemplate a Jesus without a godlike gloss as one other meaningful option for many, it would have a profound effect on our Church ethos, worship, and outreach. And what if we Christians turn down the invitation to tango? The aching gap between us and the rest of our contemporaries will go on widening relentlessly and an epoch- making opportunity will have been lost.
David Kitchingman