Preface to The Emperor's God, by Michael Rivage-Seul
Preface
I am pleased to introduce Mike Rivage-Seul's important new book, The Emperor’s God: Imperial Misunderstandings of Christianity. I have known Mike for more than 20 years. Here he shares his personal faith journey to address believers and non-believers, and even those in-between – the former believers, and half-believers – who have somehow “lost faith” in what passes for Christianity in our contemporary world.
Mike's faith journey is a remarkable pilgrimage from being a conservative Roman Catholic priest studying in Rome to a very different view of faith: more challenging, more inclusive and more catholic. His fellow graduate students from other countries asked hard questions. Later, in Brazil, Central American and in revolutionary Nicaragua, he listened to the experience of the poor. Mike began to see his faith and his own country from a very different point of view. He began to realize first hand how politicians and clergy in power used faith and patriotism for their own purposes.
Mike was forced outside his own frame, outside of the narrow box of assumptions with which he was raised. He had too easily believed that America was the “beacon on the hill” for the rest of the world, that "Might in the service of democracy was Right," and that because of our good intentions, we could not, would not do terrible things to others. Christian missionaries, for example, intended to bring savages not only salvation but a better way of life. However, in fact, they of undermined, uprooted and destroyed their way of life.
As Mike relates his faith journey, he summons us to wrestle with basic concepts such as empire, orthodox Christianity, and fundamentalism of all sorts. He shows how these have played major roles in Christian history, both for good and for ill. He looks unflinchingly at such current issues as evolution, abortion, violence, and gay marriage. His deep concern is the message of Jesus of Nazareth: the true meaning of the gospels. He summons us to a new and different view of faith.
What is intriguing to me is that my own faith journey, although quite different, has led me to the same conclusions as Mike's. My walk has also been “in the trenches,” not inside organized religion - pulpit or classroom - but listening and learning from many others. I have spent thirty years, some 45,000 hours, listening to people’s problems mainly as a marital therapist, with an interfaith ministry promoting understanding of diverse Wisdom traditions in Central Kentucky. This ministry has included extensive prison ministry and psychological consulting in organizational effectiveness, as well as college teaching. Like Mike, it is the people, their faith journeys - their heart’s desire and dimmed hopes - that have changed me.
Vietnam was also a "wake up" call for me. By then, during the Cold War, I had served in or with all four branches of the U. S. Military, both enlisted and commissioned, active duty and reserve, with two commissions in the Naval Reserve, as chaplain and later as psychologist. When Daniel Ellsberg risked condemnation and personal attack to reveal the Pentagon Papers, we knew then in the middle of that war that our leaders had concluded the war could not be won. Still they sent another 25,000 American young men and women to their deaths. I resigned my second commission and became an activist for peace and justice.
What Mike and I, separately, began to grasp was how easily humans could "absolutize" their belief systems. We humans are, in fact, so constructed that we need, desperately need, something to believe in, outside ourselves. When we find this belief, we can easily, too easily, fall on our knees to give this object, this vision, our exclusive devotion. In effect this belief takes on the aspect of being an idol. It must not be questioned.
Idols have one intriguing characteristic. Idols are jealous of other idols. That is, another idol cannot, simply cannot ever be as precious, as unique and necessary as this singular idol that I have found. Human vanity and pride are already at work. We soon begin to measure the caliber and even the spirit of others by whether they hold the same belief that we hold
The persistent question that Mike addresses is whether this way of thinking, which he demonstrates has many hidden consequences, is part of the revelation we have in Christ Jesus, or whether it is something added on - really contrary. He explains these misunderstandings are not only harmful to building human community, but also detrimental to the kind of faith that can change and remake the world for the better. In other words, the consequences of a non-reflective faith are enormous, actually dangerous to our well being and the future of civilization.
Mike challenges us repeatedly to get out of our boxes, our small conceptual bubbles in which we too easily move, and live and have our being. If we have only been listening part-time, only hearing the mainstream media, we have been lulled into a semi-conscious sleep. Few of us have thought much about empire, or orthodox Christianity or fundamentalism, or their consequences for peace and justice. Except maybe to assume that if we are sincere in what we do we cannot be wrong but will only be helpful..
One of the misunderstandings of humans today is the private belief that if I am sincere, I cannot be wrong and will not harm others. We believe that religious belief is a good and holy thing, not only beneficial and helpful for what is wrong with society. We assume that what we believe is good also for others. Yet, right belief, or orthodoxy, has been employed as justification for burnings at the stake, persecution, torture and killing of countless persons. Even today.
History shows repeatedly that true believers too easily believe God is on their side, - that others should hold the same beliefs as we hold. We too quickly come to the conclusion that others, even maybe most others, are farther from this mystery we call God than we are. We have become the privileged believers, the only ones entitled to speak about God to others.
In this book, Mike repeatedly illustrates that this making of our own belief system an "absolute" is not only harmful to humans and our many projects, but is not a conscious, reflective spirituality. This is not the message of Jesus nor is it the message of other religious founders, either of the Hebrew faith or Islam or Buddhism.
Mike has thought deeply about the consequences of faith, religious faith, nationalism, patriotic faith, orthodox faith and uses of the Bible. More importantly, he has moved outside his own comfortable context to observe and study the consequences overseas of practices and policies that flow from unexamined belief systems. He demonstrates much misdirection and misunderstanding in the Christian endeavor
The tough part of this book is that Mike asks us to examine most everything we hold dear and sacred: our faith, our country, and the Bible. He summons us to a conversation that few of us have ever dared to undertake, much less, to imagine. He wants us to recapture the original view of God’s mystery and revelation to us. He believes that this central message is to be found in all the Wisdom traditions.
I guarantee this book will be a challenging journey. However, if the reader is not ready to question the status quo, even religious belief and how it plays out and tends to alienate us-one from another, then please give this book to someone else. This is not a book for those whose strong attachment to the hidden Sacred Cows of our society allows no questioning. Like the Old Testament prophets, Mike asks us to go beyond what most today assume. I have found his writing rich with brilliant insights into the Christian message. Enjoy!
Here is an anecdote that haunts me still and seems relevant. It came to me once in a dream.
"Be careful lest the light in you be darkness." (Luke 11:35)
Rev. Paschal Baute, Ed. D.
Minister of the Gospel and Pastoral Psychologist
Coordinator, Human Resource Management program,
School for Career Development, Midway College, Midway Ky
Author, sevcral books, 14 blogs and some 300 articles.
www.paschalbaute.com
November 12, 2007. Veterans Day
I am pleased to introduce Mike Rivage-Seul's important new book, The Emperor’s God: Imperial Misunderstandings of Christianity. I have known Mike for more than 20 years. Here he shares his personal faith journey to address believers and non-believers, and even those in-between – the former believers, and half-believers – who have somehow “lost faith” in what passes for Christianity in our contemporary world.
Mike's faith journey is a remarkable pilgrimage from being a conservative Roman Catholic priest studying in Rome to a very different view of faith: more challenging, more inclusive and more catholic. His fellow graduate students from other countries asked hard questions. Later, in Brazil, Central American and in revolutionary Nicaragua, he listened to the experience of the poor. Mike began to see his faith and his own country from a very different point of view. He began to realize first hand how politicians and clergy in power used faith and patriotism for their own purposes.
Mike was forced outside his own frame, outside of the narrow box of assumptions with which he was raised. He had too easily believed that America was the “beacon on the hill” for the rest of the world, that "Might in the service of democracy was Right," and that because of our good intentions, we could not, would not do terrible things to others. Christian missionaries, for example, intended to bring savages not only salvation but a better way of life. However, in fact, they of undermined, uprooted and destroyed their way of life.
As Mike relates his faith journey, he summons us to wrestle with basic concepts such as empire, orthodox Christianity, and fundamentalism of all sorts. He shows how these have played major roles in Christian history, both for good and for ill. He looks unflinchingly at such current issues as evolution, abortion, violence, and gay marriage. His deep concern is the message of Jesus of Nazareth: the true meaning of the gospels. He summons us to a new and different view of faith.
What is intriguing to me is that my own faith journey, although quite different, has led me to the same conclusions as Mike's. My walk has also been “in the trenches,” not inside organized religion - pulpit or classroom - but listening and learning from many others. I have spent thirty years, some 45,000 hours, listening to people’s problems mainly as a marital therapist, with an interfaith ministry promoting understanding of diverse Wisdom traditions in Central Kentucky. This ministry has included extensive prison ministry and psychological consulting in organizational effectiveness, as well as college teaching. Like Mike, it is the people, their faith journeys - their heart’s desire and dimmed hopes - that have changed me.
Vietnam was also a "wake up" call for me. By then, during the Cold War, I had served in or with all four branches of the U. S. Military, both enlisted and commissioned, active duty and reserve, with two commissions in the Naval Reserve, as chaplain and later as psychologist. When Daniel Ellsberg risked condemnation and personal attack to reveal the Pentagon Papers, we knew then in the middle of that war that our leaders had concluded the war could not be won. Still they sent another 25,000 American young men and women to their deaths. I resigned my second commission and became an activist for peace and justice.
What Mike and I, separately, began to grasp was how easily humans could "absolutize" their belief systems. We humans are, in fact, so constructed that we need, desperately need, something to believe in, outside ourselves. When we find this belief, we can easily, too easily, fall on our knees to give this object, this vision, our exclusive devotion. In effect this belief takes on the aspect of being an idol. It must not be questioned.
Idols have one intriguing characteristic. Idols are jealous of other idols. That is, another idol cannot, simply cannot ever be as precious, as unique and necessary as this singular idol that I have found. Human vanity and pride are already at work. We soon begin to measure the caliber and even the spirit of others by whether they hold the same belief that we hold
The persistent question that Mike addresses is whether this way of thinking, which he demonstrates has many hidden consequences, is part of the revelation we have in Christ Jesus, or whether it is something added on - really contrary. He explains these misunderstandings are not only harmful to building human community, but also detrimental to the kind of faith that can change and remake the world for the better. In other words, the consequences of a non-reflective faith are enormous, actually dangerous to our well being and the future of civilization.
Mike challenges us repeatedly to get out of our boxes, our small conceptual bubbles in which we too easily move, and live and have our being. If we have only been listening part-time, only hearing the mainstream media, we have been lulled into a semi-conscious sleep. Few of us have thought much about empire, or orthodox Christianity or fundamentalism, or their consequences for peace and justice. Except maybe to assume that if we are sincere in what we do we cannot be wrong but will only be helpful..
One of the misunderstandings of humans today is the private belief that if I am sincere, I cannot be wrong and will not harm others. We believe that religious belief is a good and holy thing, not only beneficial and helpful for what is wrong with society. We assume that what we believe is good also for others. Yet, right belief, or orthodoxy, has been employed as justification for burnings at the stake, persecution, torture and killing of countless persons. Even today.
History shows repeatedly that true believers too easily believe God is on their side, - that others should hold the same beliefs as we hold. We too quickly come to the conclusion that others, even maybe most others, are farther from this mystery we call God than we are. We have become the privileged believers, the only ones entitled to speak about God to others.
In this book, Mike repeatedly illustrates that this making of our own belief system an "absolute" is not only harmful to humans and our many projects, but is not a conscious, reflective spirituality. This is not the message of Jesus nor is it the message of other religious founders, either of the Hebrew faith or Islam or Buddhism.
Mike has thought deeply about the consequences of faith, religious faith, nationalism, patriotic faith, orthodox faith and uses of the Bible. More importantly, he has moved outside his own comfortable context to observe and study the consequences overseas of practices and policies that flow from unexamined belief systems. He demonstrates much misdirection and misunderstanding in the Christian endeavor
The tough part of this book is that Mike asks us to examine most everything we hold dear and sacred: our faith, our country, and the Bible. He summons us to a conversation that few of us have ever dared to undertake, much less, to imagine. He wants us to recapture the original view of God’s mystery and revelation to us. He believes that this central message is to be found in all the Wisdom traditions.
I guarantee this book will be a challenging journey. However, if the reader is not ready to question the status quo, even religious belief and how it plays out and tends to alienate us-one from another, then please give this book to someone else. This is not a book for those whose strong attachment to the hidden Sacred Cows of our society allows no questioning. Like the Old Testament prophets, Mike asks us to go beyond what most today assume. I have found his writing rich with brilliant insights into the Christian message. Enjoy!
Here is an anecdote that haunts me still and seems relevant. It came to me once in a dream.
Satan was walking around with another devil, chatting. They saw a human down the road teach down to pick up something and then put it in his pocket.
"What did that man pick up?" Said the devil to Satan.
"Only a piece of truth." said Satan.
"Doesn’t that bother you?" asked the devil.
Satan laughed. "Not at all. I will simply turn it into a belief for him. Then in the vanity of his discovery, he will believe it belongs to him, that it is uniquely his own."
"What good will that do?" Asked the devil.
Satan laughed again. "Don’t you see, stupid? He will be ready to judge all other belief as not as good as his own! Then he belongs to me. He is in our camp and never even knows it," and Satan laughed with a loud and long roar.
And he keeps on laughing down through the ages.
"Be careful lest the light in you be darkness." (Luke 11:35)
Rev. Paschal Baute, Ed. D.
Minister of the Gospel and Pastoral Psychologist
Coordinator, Human Resource Management program,
School for Career Development, Midway College, Midway Ky
Author, sevcral books, 14 blogs and some 300 articles.
www.paschalbaute.com
November 12, 2007. Veterans Day
posted by Paschal Baute | 5:48 AM
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