RELIGION-LESS CHRISTIANITY
Is it curtains for the church?
I don’t know where the expression “It’s curtains” originates, but it’s meaning is clear: it signals the end of something, such as, “if the plane crashes, it’s curtains for all”.
Perhaps it originated in the theatre world; perhaps it has a biblical origin. There’s a curious item mentioned in all three synoptic gospels: The instant Jesus died on the cross, the curtain in the temple separating the Holies (the common aera where the priests gathered) from the Holy of Holies, (the place where only the High Priest was allowed to enter once a year, on the Day of Atonement), ripped from top to bottom.
It must be remembered that the temple then was at the very centre of the Jewish Religion, with its annual calendar culminating in the feast of Atonement when the High Priest, once a year, entered the Holy of Holies to make the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the people. It’s now named Yom Kippur, the highest Holy Day of the Jewish calendar. By this act reconciliation between God and the people, is restored. Suddenly the heart of the Jewish religion was ripped out. A few decades later the temple was destroyed.
Why did this curtain rip?
Curiously, this was Jesus’ very last act. I am a great believer in context, in making a decision based on previous sayings, such as found in Matthew 23. In that chapter Jesus shows his fury with the theologians of his day, the religious leaders. Seven times he condemns them for prescribing rules and regulations required for salvation. In that chapter, Jesus uses such strong language that it makes me think that the ripping of that curtain really means THE END of religion, all religion, because what applied to temple worship, is also relevant to Christianity.
Christianity is not a religion.
I believe that the torn curtain signals ‘the end of religion, of all religions, including Christianity’. Why? Because Christianity is not a religion: It is a Way of LIFE. On that Pentecost event, when the Holy Spirit descended on the crowd in Jerusalem, that divine act did not indicate the onset of the Christian Religion: it indicated a radical change in life: these early Christ-followers had everything in common, following Christ’s edict: “I have come to bring life, and that to the full” (John 10: 10).
My Life Struggle.
My religious battles have been with the church. I was an elder in a large church when the minister from the pulpit condemned a Christian organization of which I was a prominent supporter. I resigned and transferred my membership to a more open church, but when a new minister came, ultra conservative, I, rather than fight, moved away and became a member of a house church.
After 5 years that too fell apart, and joined the local Presbyterian Church, where, after 45 years, I still am a member. There I again became an elder, representing the church in the regional meeting of churches, even chaired this so-called Presbytery for 2 years, and later became to convener of the National Board of Trustees for 5 years, for the simple reason that none of the accountants and lawyers, the financial pillars of the church, had never been accustomed to pray publicly.
A bit of history.
For some 300 years after Christ died, there were only house churches, where people had possessions in common, risking life and limb, job and security. It was only after Emperor Constantin favored the Christian movement, that Christianity became a status symbol, when buildings and structures appeared, evolving into The Christian Religion. That etiquette has now worn off.
The end. Everything becomes what it is.
We now, as Climate Change, wars, epidemics intensify, must be prepared for THE END. Also, the end of religion: time to prepare ourselves for eternity to come: the New Creation. “The church is a product of the past, yet it is only out of the future that the present can be lived”, writes Bonhoeffer somewhere.
Don’t be shy to read the Bible. It still is the Book of Life. Yet, just as it is ‘curtains for the church’, so too the BIBLE will disappear. After all, it is a human book. In almost the very last Bible chapter (Revelation 21: 22), it says, I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.
No temple means no religion. No temple means no Bible. No temple means no church.
These new conditions we must now, in these final days, strive to assume. Religion killed Jesus. That’s why we already see churches disappear, and replaced by ‘a way of life’, in tune with God’s creation, our eternal future.
Prepare for ‘religion-less Christianity”, where God/Creation is all and in all.
It’s simple: ‘Love the Lord your God/Creation with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and love your neighbor as yourself. Luke 10: 27.