Those Challenging Cracks of Secularism: In and Beyond

By Rev. Oliver O. Nwachukwu

Lack of religious enthusiasm is a universal nemesis with long-ranging effects. In Those Challenging Cracks of Secularism, author Rev. Oliver O. Nwachukwu shows how secularism can further deepen dividing lines among people.

The negatives solicited by indifference to authentic religious values and the erroneous use of force to enlist membership by religious extremists are two extremities Those Challenging Cracks of Secularism opposes in the search for ultimate truth. Aggrieved by the negative effects of competing alliances on core Christian religious teachings and values, the book discusses the recent ecclesiastical wrangling in the Episcopal Church that began with the ordination of gay priests and blessing of same-sex union.

It further treats the recent clerical sex abuse scandal, allegations of cover-up, the financial burdens on the affected dioceses, as well as homosexuality in the priesthood. The mythological anabasis of the Old Testament books have often been interpreted wrongfully by fanatics to engage in senseless killings of innocent people in the name of God, something that has led to the mistaken practice of shutting religion off public places as private.

No one should be denied the privilege of close relationship with God through attitude of religious indifference. Economic obsessions, technological enslavement, proliferations of arms, racial intolerance and unbridled political correctness have diluted religious values so much that people are constantly burdened with mistrust and skepticism.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jan 9, 2014
• ISBN: 9781491703700

Rev. Oliver O. Nwachukwu

Rev. Oliver O. Nwachukwu holds Ph.D. in New Testament Studies and Early Christianity from Loyola University Chicago, Th.M. from Harvard University and B.A. from Central Connecticut State University. Having served as an adjunct professor in a number of universities, Rev. Nwachukwu is currently the pastor of St. Charles Borromeo and Immaculate Conception Churches Du Bois, Illinois. This is his third book.

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CHAPTER ONE

PROLEGOMENON

It began in the fall of 2006, some months after I had taken residence at St. Mary Nativity Church in Joliet with appointment at University of St. Francis. My contract with University of St. Francis had just ended and I was under a fresh negotiation for an adjunct position with Benedictine University in Lisle, for a course on World Religions in America. I visited University of St. Francis’ library to research for books to be used, after I had signed the contract with Benedictine University. Already a primary text edited by Jacob Neusner had been selected in agreement with the former lecturer who was on one year leave. A secondary text by Franklin Frezier was added, but neither of the two in my estimation has solid Catholic backing. I decided to balance my choice of texts by including a strong Catholic perspective to the list of the books I needed. Not because of any bias about authors from other religious affiliations, but because of my commitment to Catholic philosophy of holistic education. After all, the course was in reality a sociological sampling of world religions, of which any credible author on the subject could satisfy the need. As I went through the book shelves in the university’s library, I caught sight of a book titled, The New Faithful, written by Colleen Carroll. I glanced through some pages. It sounded interesting for a secondary literature for undergraduate students. I checked it out, and returned home with enthusiasm to settle with it. Carroll, who was in her twenties when she wrote the book in 2002, investigates why young Christian adults of her generation gravitate toward orthodoxy in their search to establish faith in Christ. Carroll quotes Mark Coomes, one of the interviewees of her book who drew much inspiration from Pope John Paul 11 for his passionate love of Christianity, to gain support for the new religious trend she observed among young Catholics committed to the faith.

Holding to the standard belief was Coomes’ thing, for he argues that no one attracts youths to religious life by lowering the bar of religion but by raising it.⁶ Although Coomes was particularly concerned with vocations to religious life, the thought of lowering bars gripped me with excitement as I wandered deliriously in my head thinking of similar areas of lowering and raising bars. His observation struck me as something of wider coverage. In the eyes of my mind I applied the understanding to many places of interest. Too many events in our global society reinforced my conviction as I tried to rationalize the saying and stretched my imagination beyond the confines of religion. One after the other, incidents of similar undertaking in magnitude and importance queued up in my head to concur with Coomes’ statement as typical.

Secondary school classroom setup lightened up in my head as a case in point. In a typical classroom setting, two major classes of students stand out, honor and ordinary students. The honor students are commonly bombarded with challenging projects to keep them abreast the ladder of academic excellence. With chains of school projects, these honor students tend to be robbed of the usual ordinaries of their age. But they like it, and often embrace it with enthusiasm, knowing well that stars are not made by chance. As a matter of fact, these honor students feel bored and agitated when given less challenging projects. By the same token of presenting honor students with challenging projects, teachers try to accommodate less enthusiastic students with less challenging projects, using the process of scarf-folding to get them to the top, if possible. They assign them less demanding projects to stimulate them, and from there walk them up to the level of their intended academic stage. In that way, every member of the class is accommodated. Should the students in their respective projects score A’s, they are happy even though the levels of academic competence for which they are described as A students differ. On one hand, is the fantastic work of the honor students, and on the other, is the satisfactory work of ordinary students struggling to be in school. For the honor students, the bar is raised but for the unenthusiastic students, it is lowered to get them on board. Lowering the bar to accommodate less enthusiastic students has a short term advantage. If the lowering process continues indefinitely, it could lead to the production of mediocrity in the work force. To discourage complacency in mediocrity, a prolonged lowering of bars should be avoided, if the sole purpose is to accommodate and not to stimulate appetite for heights. Mediocrity limits exposure, and limited exposure drives limited maturation. Momentary incentive is not a solution to systemic problem but a way of wetting the appetite for excitement to finding solution to a problem. Exposure to challenges stimulates the appetite for great heights, for something to dream about or aspire to, and from there to develop appreciation for hard work. Many events in our world today point to bars raised and bars lowered, some of which will be highlighted in the course of this work.

The kind of youth orientation that Carroll references in her book is one that queries and repudiates relativism; a philosophical stand that rejects absolute truth. Relativism looks at things from an individualistic point of view. It is wholly subjective and arbitrary, leading to a sort of individualized religious rapprochement that weakens obligation to commonality by making common good less attractive. Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI have noted with concern that our generation is becoming increasingly resistant to absolute truth and susceptible to greater relativism. The danger of relativism lies heavily on overemphasis on subjectivity rather than on objectivity. For the relativists, life is only as you see it; my good is not your good and your good is not mine. Keeping to core articles of religious truth that are often rejected by relativists, is what the youths of Carroll’s book are turning to. Why young minds of Colleen’s book (that are ordinarily excited by negative innuendoes) should gravitate toward orthodoxy when assertive independence is a common place among young minds seems ironic. The easygoingness with which relativism associates matters, ordinarily appeals to young adults. After all, there are times when rigidity is as dangerous as flexibility, particularly when it is used to discourage instead of encourage association. Many of the ideological promises of relativism have often turned out illusory and self-defeating.

It is all part of the human nature that looks for short cuts, and when they are found, there is the problem of insatiability that makes relativism an endless inclination to endless subjective want. While objecting to objective truth, relativism invariably tries to make absolute, what is subjective. By resisting the temptation to relativism, these young adults opt for the objective truth in Christian orthodoxy. According to Carroll, relativism can lead people to slip into a superficial mind-set and become consumed about the appeal to the present. To be concerned with the present is a natural fact, commonly exercised under the pressures of immediate demands. But when such pressures are allowed to consume the person, the individual is rendered a slave to his cravings. Jesus does not deny the fact of human needs, but he warns against the danger of becoming a slave to them. Pray for daily bread but do not be over anxious about tomorrow (Matt 6:11, 25-32).

AN ASTONISHING ENCOUNTER

As I sat reading Carroll’s book, the secretary of the parish in which I resided rang me. I hurried down stairs to her office, not knowing what to expect. Surprisingly, I was told that someone had telephoned, wanting to speak to a priest. I asked whether the pastor was not available to receive the call. She said that neither the pastor nor his associate was around. I told her to schedule an appointment for me to meet with the caller. She promptly had me down for the afternoon of that same day. As a matter of principle, I don’t turn down requests to see a priest unless I’m unavoidably committed. Shortly after my discussion with the secretary, a young ruddy man in his mid-twenties with an appealing height appeared. I was delighted he kept to the time, though not for the theological stuff with which he peppered our meeting, however well-intentioned he thought of it; something I least expected. My client began by confessing he was not a Catholic but a Lutheran by birth. A nominal Lutheran, if you like, and if that alone is enough to describe his family’s lukewarm affiliation with the Lutheran Church. Otherwise, my client was anything of his own religious making. I least expected his long ride into an uncultivated field of religious negatives which he handled with surprising eloquence. Unaware of what laid ahead, but sensing there were nuts to crack, I hooded myself in silence and got him seated to begin with. I shut the office door behind him to preserve our privacy; and then adjusted the pastor’s seat to suit my height. Thereafter, I sat patiently to listen to his story as we headed off to an unknown religious destination.

According to my client, religion was never a major factor in his family. From childhood his grandmother had counseled his mother not to force any religion on him but to allow him the choice of making the decision when he grew up. Ever since the instruction was passed, my ruddy client of appealing height was left without affiliation to any religion. How is one to ignite the faith for the next generation if it is not nurtured in people from infancy? Delayed gratification is dream denied, just as procrastination is assassination of aspiration. Who has penetrated the mind of God as to know when one is matured to accept God who is timeless, and who accepts all people as they are (Acts 10:28, 34-35)? Conversion by coercion is admittedly incompatible with the spirit of Christ’s humble ministry. Nevertheless, the idea of force must be properly contextualized to avoid misunderstanding that could lead to generational fidelity-rift between children and parents, mentors and mentorees. Any counseling that fans religious indifference indirectly widens the gap between one generation and the other. Rather than igniting the fundamental Christian relationship in my client as a credible path to faith, my client’s mentors took to trivializing faith-coordinates by starting him off on a faith-journey with heads full of reservations about religion. Having thus initiated the young man into constructing religious skepticism on liberal ticket, my client ended up abandoning all religions. To start off one’s faith-journey with trivialization of core religious elements, is to place religion on a path to self-defeat. Religion, as the Second Vatican Council explains, makes human journey on earth less miserable and burdensome. I find nothing to be lost exposing a child to Christian spirituality and family religious tradition.

In the Old Testament story about a Maccabean Jewish woman, we find a big contrast between the counsel this courageous lady gave her children and the one rendered by the grandmother of my client. Whereas the Maccabean woman bestirred her womanly heart with manly courage to pressure her children not to violate the religious tradition of their ancestors, the grandmother of my client ignited an attitude of religious indifference to the religious formation of her grandchild (2 Macc 7:1, 20-31). Whereas she was graced with religious education, she thought it a disservice to accord the same opportunity to her grandchild during his formative stage. No faith-aspirant succeeds in the journey of faith unaccompanied by the assistance of others, just as no instructional material, however good it might be, can guarantee ‘A’ scores for all the students in a class. No father can guarantee what his child will be at growth, however good that father might be. Knowledge is an assemblage of series of discoveries in an unbounded learning activity. Every generation builds on the legacy of the generations prior to it. A timely directive is a precautionary antidote to possible waywardness. With that snippy counsel, my client was veered off the path to authentic spirituality for a spirituality that overlooks the connection between Christ and his body, the Church. St. Augustine echoes the obvious truth in 1 John 4:20 when he states: Make man your way and you shall arrive at God. One cannot hope to arrive at God by avoiding contact other human persons created in God’s image.

Like a human embryo that needs a womb for nurturance, my client appeared to have needed a religious womb for the start of his religious life, an environmental womb where he could feel the warmth of God’s love nurtured and protected. He got the environment, his Christian family but not the womb for the nurturance he needed to establish a firm Christian faith. He was certainly blessed with a Christian-family heritage, but the blessing was rendered inefficacious by his mentors who turned indifferent to their faith-obligation, leading to his faith-development. Thus, he was left alone in the search for spiritual nurturance for his faith-affirmation, believing that the earth can be turned into heaven at some future date by sheer fortune of chance. Jesus did not think it light that children should be denied access to the grace of God: Let the children come to me; he says, do not prevent them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these (Mark 10:14; Mat 19:14; Luke 18:16). Christ’s warm embrace of children is a classical illustration of God’s eagerness to protect, educate and commune with us. That invitation is, in a way, an invitation to all persons, young and old alike; we are all children of God (Matt 11:28). Infants need Christ as much as adults. Parenthood is a response to the invitation developed around the exemplary life of Christ, who sought out and organized people around himself as the way to God (John 14:6). Hence, the Scripture describes humans as branches that cannot be separated from the main tree for life and productivity (John 15:1-5).

Parental attachment to kids is so strong that parents are willing to walk with their children through valleys of discomfort. The willingness to walk through the valleys of discomfort with children ensures protection from anti-religious modeling. This is the sacrifice George T. Montague compares to the persecution of Christians at the time when John wrote the book of Revelation:

If our problem is not persecution, is it perhaps seduction? . . . God’s Word challenges us in our situation just as it did in theirs . . . . We can see in the local and worldwide conflicts and tribulations of our day the same kind of call to conversion, not only of others, but of ourselves as well.⁷

At the crucial stage of my client’s formative relationship with God (a formation that would eventually lead to his future recognition of God in other persons), his family stayed clear under pressures of bias and misconceptions to allow circumstances dictate the course of his future approach to religion. With screwed assumptions that are totally incongruous with scriptural demands and ecclesia wants, they alienated my client from the God he was inclined by nature to know. Being apprehensive of the negative external activities of some church members, his mentors failed to see God’s hand in the myriad of other positive exemplifications of other church members. John F. Kennedy once said: A child miseducated is a child lost. Christian faith is a gift to be embraced and not a problem to be solved. How is faith to be embraced when it is not modeled? Modeling inspires admiration, and admiration begets fellowship. An authentic spiritual-growth formation accommodates no attitude of indifference to the essentials of religion. Rather, it encourages commitment to whatever will enable the beneficiary to rightly assess the ultimate validity of the truth of religion intended as necessary. And once the truth about religion has been established, the undertaker can discern its form and appreciate its content at growth. Instead of assisting my client to understand the ultimate truth of religion, his mentors took to condemnation before prosecution, while still expecting a smooth transition at growth. Because he was started off on a faulty premise, he accepted misconception for truth to create occasion for the devil to make victim of his heart (cf. 1 Peter 5:8-9). The devil that Peter speaks about in his first letter, is the adversary Paul echoes in the letter to the Ephesians when he says: Our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places (Eph 6:12). Of these adversaries, the worst are the negatives we accommodate as real to weigh down our spiritual self. These negatives operate, as it were, not in isolation, but through the agency of adversaries in human that incite divisions and profane thoughts of irresponsible acts.⁸

Events can turn around for the good nature ordained for humans. Revelation speaks of God taking up habitation among humans, a habitation that is tied to the establishment of the messianic kingdom (Rev 21:3; Matt 12:28; Luke 17:21).⁹ God’s dwelling with humans is not with respect to age or nationality, but sustainability as promised in Jesus Christ (John 14:18). According to the author of second letter of Peter, in this messianic kingdom God will fashion a new beginning (2 Peter 3:13; see also Isa 65:17-18; Act 3:21; Rom 8:18-25). John expresses this new beginning metaphorically as the disappearance of the old heaven and earth, and the appearance of a new home where no temple or sun light is needed. The ensuring cosmic development undoubtedly is without reference to geophysics… [but] of the new moral relationship between God and men, says William G. Heidt.¹⁰ John wants us to see from this development in Christ’s triumph over death, a new understanding of trials and tribulations, and from there a clear understanding of what it means to be in relation with God (cf. Rev 21:3; Isa 25:5-12; 65:17-19; Ezek 37:27). This relationship with God is uniquely expressed in the gathering of the Christian faithful at the Eucharistic celebration. There the Paschal mystery celebrated in obedience to the command of the Lord at the Last Supper, and kept in a special manner on the first day of the week in honor of the Lord’s resurrection day, is reenacted in the community of God’s people gathered for worship. Of which, the replaced earthly Temple in Revelation by a heavenly Jerusalem (Rev 21:1-2), pointing to realized eschatology is different from the eschatology yet to be realized in the Johannine Gospel.

So, in pursuance of building relationship with God, the mystery of God’s presence in Christ becomes the focus of New Testament as the new tabernacle. This tabernacle is the structure fashioned by God as a worthy means to communicating his divinity and ordinances, and to which we are incorporated (Jer 31:31-34). Paul puts it lucidly in 1 Cor 6:19b; 3:9c, 11, 16, indicating God’s ownership of this tabernacle still: We are… God’s building. Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? Understood as such, we are tabernacles created not only holy, but also as agents of sanctification (the communicating of God’s goodness). My client was kept off the road map to communicating God’s goodness, and given instead, wishes of fleeing shadow to justify lukewarmness.

Having been alienated from the wisdom of religion and fed on hazy religious concepts, my client spent his childhood reading cynical writings about religion. The more he got soaked reading these writings, the farther he drifted from true religious values. And the farther he drifted, the more tasteless his appetite for religion deepened with prejudice. When the physical self is disjointed from its spiritual root, spirituality is lost to the unwanted inevitable. No one seeking close contact with God rips a hole on the wall of faith. With a lethargic approach to religion, my client got locked out mentally of normative religious constructs. St. Thomas Aquinas warns: It is better to limp along the way [of Christ] than to stride along off the way. For a man who limps along the way, even if he only makes slow progress comes to the end of the way; but one who is off the way, the more quickly he runs, the further away is he from his goal.¹¹ He was led to stride away from God, who is abidingly present in our life (Matt 28:20; see also Acts 17:27). The Yahwist writer makes a case of God’s presence to the grumbling Israelites of the tenth century B.C. In their desperation for lack of material sustenance, these Israelites wondered whether Yahweh was in their midst or not (Exod 17:3-7).

Where is the wisdom in the counsel in which one ingratiates oneself with a hypothesis one is ill-equipped to control the outcome? The taste of a counsel is in its result and not in the formulation of hypotheses or propositions. His grandmother prompted a counsel with open-ended consequences she least expected. Even if she meant that my client should be left to embrace the acts of religion as a mature adult, he would still need some basic formative aids to stay on course the terrain of religion for his choice of religion at growth. Having indirectly instigated in him a disdainful feeling toward organized religion, his passion for religion became polarized as he confronted faith in God with the characteristic rebellious acts of adolescent age. When one projects too far into an unknown future with lofty expectations, the joy of expectancy turns into frustration when the hope fails to meet the goal. Therefore, Into things beyond your strength, search not (Sirach 3:20). That we should not search beyond our strength is not an assassination of aspiration but an appeal to moderation, a check against inordinate ambition. It is hanging one’s coat within one’s reach. A situation St John of the Cross compares to playing down on primaries for substitute against God’s wish:

Let those who go bustling about, who think they can transform the world with their exterior works and preaching, take note that they would profit the Church more and be far more pleasing to God (not to mention the good example they would give) if they spent half as much time abiding with God in prayer… . Certainly, they would accomplish more and with less toil with one work than they would now with a thousand works thanks to their prayers and the increase spiritual strength from which they would benefit. Otherwise, their lives would be reduced to making a lot of noise and accomplishing little more than nothing, if not nothing at all, or indeed at times doing harm.¹²

Religion creates bond among people. The failure of my client to witness such bond as part of his faith-formation prevented him from assessing one of the essentials in religion.

RELIGION IMPLIES NO FORCE BUT JUST MENTORING

Religion, as an acknowledgment of a Supreme Being deserving worship and service implies no solicitation of membership by force but just mentoring.¹³ Christian missionary model, prefigured in the commissioning of the Apostles, rejects the use of force (Matt 10:14; Mark 6:11; Luke 9:5; 10:11). That the Apostles should shake off the dust from their feet when leaving anywhere the gospel message is refused implies total rejection of confrontation. We see it exemplified in Acts 13:15, where some Jews incited influential worshippers to stir up protest against Paul and Barnabas. The Apostles quietly left the scene. On the other hand, that one should raise one’s voice against an erring brother or sister does not in any way detract from true love for the erring party. If anything, it illustrates the depth of concern for the erring party. After all, God chastises those he loves (Judith 8:25-27; Job 5:17; Heb 12:6). Discipline without love is unsympathetic, and love without discipline is neglect. To some extent, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a Greek critic and historian in Rome in the first century B.C. may be correct, To be punished is not evil, he says, but it is an evil to be made worthy of punishment.¹⁴ We need discipline to knock down personal ego for collective good.

Whether the word, ‘force’ as implied by the grandmother of my client should be taken literally or figuratively, takes me on a worldwide mental flight to where the idea has been applied differently for purposes of correction, instruction and discipline. Examples queued up in my head as I move from one incident to another, discovering forced democracy, forced education, forced dieting, forced exercise, forced medication, etc. I am not ignorant of the abuses that do occasionally occur in the cause of discharging genuine cases. I am equally not unacquainted with the positive results that have been achieved in the application of force when necessary, especially when used to prevent wanton complacency in an error that could lead to the distortion of truth or the collapse of standards (e.g. the error of heresy or violation of law). Convinced of the conventionality of the use of force for some intended good,¹⁵ I nodded in disapproval of the wisdom of the directive to my client’s mother, even if his grandmother did not mean it to be taken literally. Proverb 13:24 advises: Spare the rod and destroy the child or destroy the child and spare the rod. In line with the understanding of human inclination to rebellious acts, an army commander must avail himself of the use of force to ensure full compliance in the military squadron, even when junior officers would have favored it otherwise. Not for his penchant to instigate controversy does he use force, but because he knows that without such commanding disposition, he could hardly secure the absolute obedience needed in the military. It works the same for soldiers of Christ who must exercise with love, the commanding character and leadership mentoring for the discharge of the scriptural mandate to be each other’s keeper.

I had a mixed reaction at first when my client informed me of the advice by his grandmother, but as things began to crystallize in my head, I quickly came to the conclusion that social permissiveness has tolls on religion. Does the counsel not to force religion on my client mean that he should be given break from religion? In other words, he can be an atheist at growth, if that is what he wants to be. That is exactly where many people have failed their faith-obligation. Christian faith, for instance, impinges on the bearers to be each other’s keeper (cf. Gen 4:9; John 13:15). Granted that the use of coercion is not compatible with the spirit of Christ, its neglect when necessary is not helpful either. Freedom is neither irreconcilable with nor allergic to religious discipline. When does one begin to train for the recognition of the Supernatural Being that is entitled to reverence to be able to conform to the beliefs that come there from? Right from infancy, I suppose. Obedience, reverence and worship are not timeless character-molding devices, deserving no training. Discipline takes time to cohere in a person. The earlier it is started the better. That my client should implicitly be led not to understand that there is a God who is entitled to obedience, reverence and community worship, and that the human person is created by God, is the start of the confusion that equates religion with church.

If the purpose is to spare my client from affiliation to any particular church, then, religion must not be confused with church. Church is not religion and religion is not church. Religion borders on belief and church on people of faith, people of God who, in their worship, acknowledge the controlling power of God. The church is an ark in the world with its own culture and destination.¹⁶ As explained in the Lumen Gentium of Vatican II, the church is an organization of people of faith hierarchically structured for the worship of God and service to humanity. That being the case, I must concur with Philippe that we do not always have to be in the church to be with God.¹⁷ One does not necessarily have to belong to a church or participate in the Lord’s Day celebration to affirm the existence of God. Our environment and its contents offer enough evidence of the existence of God (Wis 13:1; Ps 103:4, see also John 8:31). God is particularly made evident in the midst of genuine commitment to relieving other people the daily burdens of time. Could it be that the grandmother of my client was recommending that he be not bothered with religion till he grew up? Why would religion be excluded from his formative needs when human being is by nature religious? Religion makes human journey on earth less miserable by pointing to the right direction. Human mind, a friend once told me, works like an interest bearing account. The more it is used the more it is built. Whereas positive religious inclination was expected of my client at growth, his mentors were robbing off positive religious disposition in him for his expected choice of religion as part of his growth. While from infancy they helped to build up his physical and intellectual growth, they procrastinated on helping his spiritual growth. Balanced maturity involves simultaneous development of body and spirit. As a matter of fact, children are slow to affiliate to any church without the assistance of their mentors. They look up to their mentors for signs of inspiration. If my client were affiliated with a church, he would have been started off on a solid ground to guide his choice of religion at growth. Since he came from nominal Christian family, he was ab initio bankrupted of religious modeling to aid his choice of religion at growth.

If the purpose of the counsel was to prevent his mother from proselytizing him into a particular church, there is a catch here. Is there a mother who has never forced her child to act according to her wishes? Not in the least! To command a motorist to observe the Interstate speed limit or lose his driving license does not mean forcing him to act against his will, but helping him to avoid possible road mishap. Why would the same idea not be applied to the religious formation of children, if their supervisors truly value their faith? An act done in good faith to assist an apprentice acquire mastery of his work is different from an act that could lead the apprentice to despise the work. It was not for nothing that Jesus cited Ahimelech in I Sam 21:5 to draw distinction between an act done out of necessity and an act done out of convenience, when the Pharisees complained his disciples were violating the Sabbath rest by picking ears of corn on a Sabbath (Mark 2:23-26; 7:1-6; Matt 12:1-5; Luke 6:1-5).¹⁸ There is no offense in an action where no malice is involved. Our journey to God needs guidance. It was not for no good purpose that the disciples requested Jesus to teach them how to pray (Luke 11:1-2). They needed guidance on how to communicate with God. In the same manner, while the use of force to get one on board the path to God should never be encouraged, it is important not to take no to circumvent responsibility toward faith-obligation.

Amos was clear on this when he chided Israel for hypocrisy. Israel continually celebrated the Sabbath worship but overlooked the obligation to justice demanded of children of God: I hate and despise your feasts, Amos says, I take no pleasure in your solemn festivals… . I reject your oblations, and refuse to look at your sacrifices of fattened cattle. Let me have no more of the din of your chanting… . But let justice flow like water, and integrity like an unfailing stream (Amos 5:21-24). If religion were only a matter of ritualistic service to God, with no human dimensional services involved, there would be no need for the oxymoron from my client’s grandmother. The divine revelation and Mystical Body of Christ attested in the gathering of the believers, differ completely from what the grandmother tries to insinuate for church and religion. To be a Christian is to be one in fellowship with others in Christ, whether you are in the church or not. There is no island-Christian. All who respond positively to the invitation to fellowship in Christ respond to membership with others in Christ.

As our discussion progressed with enthusiasm, my client spoke as though he had the power of divine authority behind every statement he made. I withdrew to myself, wondering what prompted his grandmother’s counsel. I checked out the definition of force and found one I liked most. It defines force as lacking spontaneity. Other meanings like: strength, energy, power, coercion and unlawful violence to a person or property presented no suitable explanation to what I wanted. Whereas spontaneity implies acting on one’s own volition, the use of force implies being intolerant of another person’s feelings. Christian religion abhors that. Following Christ’s method of appealing, rather than forcing people to come to him, Paul appealed to Philemon to accept Onesimus, his runaway slave. Paul knew he had authority to command Philemon to accept Onesimus but he decided to take the route of plea (Philem 7-9). People are at their best when no compulsion to action is involved; they act wholly with interest because they want to and not because they have to. Nevertheless, absolute freehand is a daydream because we are naturally constrained by many factors that moderate our acts. To speak of freehand to an underage person whose communication skills and world outlook are totally dependent on others for acceptance or rejection, is unrealistic. At this earliest formative stage, when seeds of civility and piety are sown, seniors are duty-bound to mold into their dependants characters of acceptable standard. Being so vulnerable and amenable that even with the prospect of denying a child the services of religion at infancy, he could hardly distinguish religion and irreligion. Therefore, it is necessity for children to be guided and helped to develop sound religious growth.

CHAPTER TWO

DIVINE PURPOSEFUL INSPIRATION

What is special about humanity that, in spite of its shortcomings, God desires our communion? Isaiah attempts an answer that hinges on divine superabundant affection, which is comparable to the maternal love for a nursing babe (Isa 49:15). Because creation has purpose, we are inspired in different ways to engage in activities that benefit, not only our interests but also that of the wider human community. So it happened that Abraham was inspired with the mission of starting a new pedigree. Abraham severed ties with kith and kin at Ur of Chaldean to establish a people after God’s design (Gen 12:1-6; Heb 11:8). Moses received similar inspiration when he was commanded to go to Pharaoh to obtain release of the Israelites from oppression (Exod 4:22-23). Israel’s liberation would be unfulfilling, if the people turned unfaithful to divine ordinances. Hence, Moses enjoined them to observe the Commandments handed down to them. Joshua made similar appeal when he summoned the Israelite elders and addressed them on the modalities of their entry into the Promised Land (Jos 1:12-16). Both Nathan and Elijah confronted Israelites kings on the seriousness of abuse of royal office, announcing with threat of disaster for miscarriage of justice (2 Sam 12:1-12; 1 Kings 21:17-24). Jeremiah could not spare Judah on the hypocrisy of their temple worship (Jer 26:1-9), and so was Amos who warned the Northern Kingdom about the evil consequence of their negative spirituality (Amos 7:14-16). The mythological Jonah got the lesson of his life for failing to cooperate with the inspired plan of God to save Nineveh from the consequence of its corruption (Jonah 1-3).

Christ showed no hesitation, following the will of his Father to call people to conversion. So persuasive were the wisdom and authority of his words that all who heard him marveled at him (Mark 6:2-4; Luke 11:27). The Apostles faired no less the same, having received the command to make disciples of all the nations (Matt 28:19; see also John 3:18). But the command was never intended to imply conversion by intimidation, but by appeal. If there were demands, they were more about repentance and detachment from worldliness than anything else. On the Pentecost day, the people who gathered appeared to have heeded the message when they heard Peter. Touched by the power of Peter’s speech, they panicked for repentance, asking what to do. Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, Peter demanded of them (Acts 2:37, 38). The result was a staggering number of three thousand people who converted. By the same token of divine power, Saul was held back from persecuting Christians (Act 9:1-10). Paul’s encounter with God on the road to Damascus was a decisive factor that catapulted the Gentiles into the lime light of salvation. Not long after Paul’s conversion, the Gentiles received recognition as members of God’s folk. There were, however, Jews who played caution not to have full communion with the Gentiles, even after their conversion. Peter, for instance, gave up eating with them for fear of being accused of eating with the uncircumcised. Paul was flabbergasted by such dissimulation, and dismissed Peter with sharp criticism of the incongruity of his actions with the truth of the gospel message (Gal 2:11-14). Peter had earlier stated at Cornelius’ house that God shows no partiality. Rather in every nation whoever fears him and acts uprightly is acceptable to him (Act 11:34). Although Peter was among the presiders of the Christian Judaizers’ case at the Jerusalem council (cf. Acts 15:1-21), he appears to have acted against the council’s recommendations.

However seemingly paradoxical or discomforting these cases might be, they appear to be in line with God’s plan of calling people in different ways to reveal the mysteries of his kingdom. The call to parenthood follows the same line of divine plan.¹⁹ My client’s parents responded to the call, a call to swim against popular worldly current that makes us slaves to evil or at any rate prisoners of moral mediocrity.²⁰ They played low the obligation arising from their response with flimsy excuses of fleeing shadows of procrastination. Instead of helping my client to develop strong faith in God, they tossed away the assistance he needed, leaving him with the option of personal decision without the opportunity of proper connection with the body of Christ. In the silence of his spiritual isolation, my client waited to hear the ever-present voice of God, to respond with the prophetic symbolism of Isaiah, capsulated in Christian liturgical music: Here I’m Lord. I have heard you calling (Isa 6:8; see also Exod 3:4). The more he waited to hear the voice of God amid secularism and religious indifference, the greater the chances of his being caught by opposing voices of irreligion, disbelief, disobedience and treachery from all around him. Rather than turning to his family faith for the fulfillment of divine purpose, my client turned inwardly to himself to discover God’s purpose for him. Thus, he broke ties with his family’s lukewarm religiosity to seek out his own salvation. For, not to teach is to teach not to learn.

INDUCING RELIGIOUS ESTRANGEMENT

However secured the womb is to an unborn baby, at a certain point it will become uncomfortable and the baby must struggle to leave. Of late, though, my client began to scout round to establish his religious identity lost at the formative stage. He sought to give meaning to his personal being by bringing God into the equation of his life. But the God he now seeks to know has been there ere he was born, reaching out directly and indirectly through his parents and other members of his faith-family. He could no longer bear to struggle each day if that struggle is to remain forever at the level of earth, if God is to be absent from it, if it is not to be with God that he and his brothers live, love and die.²¹ My client sought not to struggle alone any more but to seek out God through communion with other people of faith.

John Locke, a medieval philosopher, speaks about the emptiness of human brain at birth (tabla rasa); we must admit though, that it cannot be totally blank, if genetic heritage must be considered. The brain gets written up through interactions as one grows. What interactive religious experience did my client receive from his environment to aid his genetic make-up for his future practice of religion? Not much, if any! For the most part, it was skepticism, indifference and opposition to religious establishments that he received for his future sodality with others. My astonishment went boundless as my client plotted graphs of his religious inadequacy that had taken cynicism for wisdom. I wondered as he spoke whether his grandmother ever considered the consequences of this induced religious estrangement. Had she advised her daughter to be persuasive rather than relaxing, convincing instead of condemning, in fashioning religious model for my client, I am certain he would have turned out better prepared for the watery religiosity he was forced to swallow as real. How could he have made it later if he were left unaided at the prime stage of his formation, for the more he was separated from religious tie with others, the less enthusiastic he grew about religion. And the less enthusiastic he grew, the faster he strayed from the essential elements of religion. What was never connected cannot be reconnected. Pope Benedict XVI, citing the life of saints as model for followers of Christ, insists in his Deus Caritas Est that those who draw near to God do not withdraw from men, but rather become truly close to them. Pope John Paul II had earlier on February 14, 1982, affirmed a similar understanding during the ordination of ninety-one priests in Nigeria. Time spent in prayer, he said, is not time taken away from the people but time spent for the people. Saints do not live in isolation of others but in communion with them as fellow members of the body of Christ. If God is in human reconciling the world to himself, humans can never be true agents of reconciliation if faith-interaction is impaired. By being involved with others as members of God’s human family, believers form bond as co-workers in the act of reconciling the world to God. Mere intellectual assent to Christian doctrine is not enough to form such bond to be effective reconcilers, because the individual who assents to faith must do so in communion with others who look forward to its consummation in God.

As our discussion progressed, amid doubts and consternations, I noticed some uneasiness welling up in my client’s eyes. It is not clear whether the change was caused by his induced religious estrangement or by some kind of discomfort my discussion might have provoked in him. Having been denied integral part of his formative entitlement, the bar was so lowered that there was nothing absolutely positive left for him about religion to hang on as truthful. There, the robber meets the road. Time and time again my client interrupted our discussion with apologies, confessing as he did that he had never been to a priest for anything before. Religion was not a part of his family’s prided legacy. Ironically, he was blessed with people who confessed affiliation with a Christian denomination. Their selective religiosity, tailored for my client to suit their own religious disenchantment, turned out malignant to his faith-formation. Like the sower’s seed that fell among thorns, his faith-journey got choked up, and he ended up producing neither the hundred nor the thirtyfold needed as evidence to guide his future decision for choice of religion (Matt 13:7, 22).

I can understand the case of a child of parents of differing religious affiliations, struggling to keep balance in their family by suggesting a free hand in the choice of religion for their child to avoid family conflict. The parents could agree not to insist on any one of their own religions but to allow the child to make the decision, most likely between his parents’ own religions. Even with such arrangement, the parents would endeavor to provide the child with the rudimentary faith-tools needed to make smooth transition from parental affiliation to personal choice by exposing him to the religious ideals already in use in their family. Otherwise, the child grows up, finding alternatives outside their family religious circle. No one can make it to the hall of fame, watching players in the TV or memorizing the names of sports stars. One got to rough it out in the field with other players to gain mastery of the sports, and win the fans’ admiration to be on the road map to the hall of fame. The same is true for religion. To be connected with religious ideals, one got to be in touch with those who share similar faith-understanding to draw support. Roger Vermalen Karban once wrote in "The Messenger newspaper of Belleville diocese: No one can bring us to true faith unless they bring us to the point where we begin to follow Jesus." We are handicapped without the assistance of others in the journey of faith. The situation of my client, with respect to family religious disparity, is unique. He has neither family religious conflict nor disparity in cult, rather individual’s religious bias. His family members profess Christianity as their religion, so to speak. Beyond that, it is whether to practice the faith they inherited or to allow it to melt away. They opted for the latter, confessing allegiance to their religion only to the extent of being initiated into it and probably, received confirmation. But they lost the enthusiasm to transmit the same faith. How can a parent demand the practice of faith when that parent does not model the faith demanded of his child? It is necessary for mentors to model the behavior they seek to encourage in their wards than simply speak about it. Children love modeling. Modeling drives inspiration just as experience drives maturation. Children may not be good at listening, but they are good at imitating, for the visual world has more to appeal to children than theories about harmonica of angelic voices.

Therefore, they are in errors who, gratifying themselves, deny their wards the essentials of religion by keeping them away from fellowship. The farther they are separated from the rudiments of religion, the harder it is for them to embrace them later as necessary. My client grew independently away from the essentials of faith, learning every negative about religion out of induced alienation. When the time came for him to cement his spirituality in God, his induced separation rendered it lethargic. Neophytes gain insight and admiration for the religion of their choice through interaction with the people who practice faith. Jewish Hassidic teaching says it all about the danger of spiritual isolation. When people huddle together, it says, they get warmth and comfort from each other and hope is renewed. When bonded with the weakness, strength and joy of others, believers build strong Christian support network. If you are friends with Christ, Francois Maurice says, many others will warm themselves at your fire… On the day when you no longer burn with love, many will die of the cold. Isolationist religiosity makes genuine spirituality hard to attain even at a high premium cost. High spiritual premium could be avoided if addressed timely, for a stitch in time saves nine. By introducing children to the virtues of religion when they are amenable, a solid religious foundation is established against possible religious coldness.

CHAPTER THREE

ISRAEL ON THE LESSON OF MAINTAINING FAMILY RELIGIOUS IDENTITY

Making sense of connection and continuity in God stands behind the many Israel’s traditional religious celebrations; whether it is the Sabbath rest or the feast of Passover (eating of unleavened bread), Pentecost (feast of Weeks) and Booth (Exod 23:15-16; 34:18-23), or even teaching the children the traditions of their ancestors. We are called not only individually, but communally also. Whether it is for the pursuit of religious life, political career or any other profession, a certain norm of operation is foreshadowed as a principle binding on all the members, for the community to meet its goal. By means of such principle, the members are united as a team. It works the same way for a nation, whose foundation is the nuclear family. A morally stable nation has much to extol of stable families. You can tell a people by what they worship. Pope Leo XIII speaks in his encyclical, Rerum Novarum of 1891, about the importance of family in relation to the state. Family and not the state is the building block of any society; he says, it should be protected, particularly by the common bond of religion.²² Religion holds the link of spiritual power upon which society stands or falls. Those entering into marriage with the view to raising families, engage in a dream of stately-building block founded on religious ideals, the corner stone of social unity.

The history of Israel is the history of a priestly people gathering on mount Zion to praise and offer sacrifices to God. It is the history of monotheism and of people of covenant. Israel’s conquest battle for the Promised Land was a victory predicated on faithfulness to the covenant God made with the ancestors (Exod 19-20; 34:10-16; Deut 31:1-8). Israel was sure to inherit the Promised Land as long as they remained faithful to the covenant. Otherwise, Israel was sure to lose it (Deut 29:8; 32:45-47). Obedience to the covenant was Israel’s strongest identity mark. Joshua reiterated the exhortation to the elders, calling on them to observe faithfully the ordinances (Joshua 1:12-18; 24:1-17). That the order was to be enforced to the last was a leap of faith for Israel, whose self-consciousness as children of covenant was deeply ingrained. Juxtapose Israel’s religious consciousness and the hesitation of my client’s mentors to encourage faith in him, there is cause for alarm about the sincerity of the faith of the twenty-first century generations. Nevertheless, what happened later in the cause of Israel’s migration and integration can hardly present a classical picture of the people that once stood before Moses and Joshua to pledge their loyalty to God. In reality, it appears there was no golden age at which Israel could be said to have been totally faithful to the covenant. In the course of Israel’s assimilation, obligation to the covenant relationship with God was so weakened that the people could not survive the tragedies that followed (cf. 2 Chr 36:11-20; Ezra 9:1-2). In the words Joe Robinson: Most of God’s people who left Egypt started off with faith, but when the going got difficult they refused to do the things God told them and they missed out on enjoying the blessing of the Promised Land.²³ Tossed about by momentary inconvenience, Israel lost patient, grumbling because of lack of material conveniences. Thus, Israel positioned herself weakly before the Lord to suffer deportation (Exod 17:7).²⁴

The author of Judges narrates how intermarriage with foreign women led many Israelites into worshipping images and gods of the Amorites (Judges 6:10; see also 1 Kgs 11:1-14 for the sins of King Solomon). Having strayed from the covenant, Israel veered into syncretism and idolatry in the excitement to be like other nations (I Sam 8:4-5), losing her family religious identity in the process. If the prophets spoke or wrote anything, it was not without reference to Israel’s infidelity, described by Hosea as an act of adultery. Prophet after prophet visited the issue of Israel’s covenantal relationship with God, calling on the people to return to Yahweh by returning to the covenant. By returning to the covenant, Israel was meant to practice justice, eschew idolatry and worship God as the only true Being. In a dysfunctional world of infidelity, spokesmen of God see things from the covenantal relationship, that is, from the point of view of God who abides in love. As Israel broke loose from the covenant to substitute personal ego for tradition, Jeremiah could not contain such stubborn hypocrisy (Jer 2: 5, 19-20; 8:4-6, 12 and 17). His concerns, though, appears to have fallen on deaf ears as the people plotted to kill him:

I did not know it was against me that they devised schemes, saying, ‘Let us destroy the tree with its fruit; let us cut him off from the land of the living so that his name will no longer be remembered. Faithfulness has disappeared; the word itself is banished from their speech… . They walk in the hardness of their evil heart, and turned their backs, not their faces to me… They have stiffened their necks and done worse than their fathers… . This is the nation which does not listen to the voice of the Lord, its God, or take correction (Jer 7:23-28; 11:19; 18:18-23).

Then came the tipping point, at which it could be said that the Lord has had enough of his people’s stubbornness, and the Lord had to show himself their master. Yet, the Lord was ready to give them a new start (cf. 2 Chr 36:19-23). Elijah, a lone voice ranger, crying in the midst of thunderous adversaries, pointedly gives a hint to how Israel treated with levity God’s agreement with his people. In his escape speech, Elijah laments the people’s level of infidelity: The Israelites have forsaken your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to the sword. I alone am left and they seek to take my life (1 Kgs 9:10). He was pointedly clear on Israel’s subversion, testified after the contest at Mount Carmel when he sought security as the water became too deep for him to swim safely to the shore. Yet, Elijah’s personality remained influential, and his charisma overwhelmingly unmistaken, that he somehow embodied the deeply concealed aspirations of Israel left hanging to be salvaged by the expected Messiah.²⁵ Isaiah’s vineyard song articulated in Song of Songs 2:15-16 and 7:12-13, which was probably sung originally in the context of the Feast of Booths, is not without reference to Israel’s disappointing relationship with God (Deut 16:13; Lev 23:34; Isa 5:1-7). The vineyard is a disappointment, and instead of choice fruit, it produced nothing but inedible sour grapes, small and hard, says Pope Benedict XVI.²⁶ This disappointing produce, pointing to the the history of God’s constantly renewed struggle for and with Israel is echoed in the New Testament parable of the wicked tenants who leased a vineyard but refused to give the owner of the vineyard his share of the agreed produce. Instead of giving the farm owner his own share, the tenants abused and killed his messengers who went to collect their master’s allocation. In anger, the landowner brought the tenants to a wretched end, and leased his vineyard to other tenants (Matt 21:33-41; Luke 20:9-16). The disasters that befell the two Kingdoms of North and South in 722 and 587 B.C. respectively left the people bruised for life. Thus, living in captivity, Israel regretted her mistake as she endured the taunt of her captors (cf. Ps 137:1-4).

When John the Baptist appeared in the desert, he made the call to return to the covenant the starting point of his message (Mark 1:4-5). Like the Old Testament prophets, John sought conversion from the people, thus, he brings to life in his ministry, Isaiah’s prediction about a voice crying in the wilderness (Isa 40:3). Howbeit, John did not have the audacious authority of Jesus Christ, who confronted the blasphemy of money changers and animal sellers with the strongest show of denunciation (Matt 21:12-13; Mark 11:15-17; Luke 19:45-46; John 2:14-16). Jesus saw in his own life and ministry the fulfillment of what Isaiah predicted concerning the coming Day of the Lord (cf. Matt 11:4-6; Luke 4:21; Isa 11:6-7; 35:5-6). Protecting family’s religious tradition could equally be read into Christ’s commissioning statement to the Apostles. According to Matthew’s Gospel, the apostles were sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matt 10:5-6, 19-20). And the answer Jesus gave to the Canaanite woman who begged for his healing power over her demonic daughter, points to the same act of protecting family religious tradition, though with a clue to lingering antipathy between Jews and Gentiles (Matt 15:24). That Jesus eventually attended to the Canaanite woman, indicates that walls of hostility were crumbling, prefiguring, thus, Gentile incorporation, presented pari passu to the prediction that many will come from the east and the west to recline with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob at the banquet in the kingdom of heaven (Matt 8:11-12). By telling the apostles to go after the lost sheep of the house of Israel, Jesus makes boundless the limit of Christian ministry (Matt 28:19-20). And so it happened that in the succeeding church of the Apostles, Paul indicates that Peter was entrusted with ministering to the Jews while he himself was charged with the Gentiles (Gal 2:7-8). With both Jews and Gentiles now covered, Thomas Carzon could rightly declare: God did not choose Israel to remain apart from all the nations, but to be a sign [a paragon of family religious identity] to all the nations of his saving power.²⁷

RELIGION, AGENT OF FAMILY COHESION

Family religion creates family togetherness. During the pre-exilic reign of Jehoiakim, Judah was caught in the middle of power struggle between two archrival imperial nations of Egypt and Babylon; each trying to fill the power vacuum left by Assyria. In 605 B.C., the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar defeated the Egyptian Pharaoh Neco in the battle at Carchemish, and placed Judah under the control of Babylon. In 597 B.C., Nebuchadnezzar attacked Jerusalem, deported King Jehoiakim and many of the Judean aristocrats to Babylon. He replaced King Jehoiakim with a marionette King Zedekiah. Contrary to Jeremiah’s advice not to rebel against Babylon but to capitulate, Zedekiah rebelled against Babylon, accusing Jeremiah of being a traitor (cf. Jer 37-38). Shortly after, King Nebuchadnezzar attacked Jerusalem, captured Zedekiah and carried him to Babylon where he later died in exile.²⁸ With leadership vacuum created, nothing was left to hold the people of Judah together but their faith in God. The kings were gone and the wise men that used to be at the kings court, had been silenced. The prophets and priests were the last hope left to unite the exiled people under faith in God, and as Cavnar would say, to prepare them for the final destruction of Jerusalem that took place in 587 B.C. In 586 B.C., King Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem and its temple, deported many of its inhabitants to Babylon including Ezekiel. Intertestamental wisdom literatures became the major spiritual source for family spirituality. With these intertestamental writings, according to Nick Cavnar, The wise came to see that true wisdom begins with submission of one’s mind and heart to the wisdom of God.²⁹

When Cavins described human family as truly the theater in which the children see salvation history continue, primary point of entry in the divine drama,³⁰ he was stating nothing less than