A tiny glint...

...into the murky land that is the Battle for the Soul of Christianity, comes via this article at the Utne Reader. He crystallizes the division of the Christian community in a way that seems very truthful and perhaps even useful:

Americans who consider themselves Christian tend to think about the New Testament's central character in one of two distinct ways. For many, what matters most is that Jesus was a divine spirit who died for their sins. To accept him as your savior is to be saved, and the pursuit of that salvation is paramount. For a smaller percentage of believers, Jesus is a peasant revolutionary who lived by example and died for it. To model your behavior after his is to bring earth closer to heaven.

Yes, this feels right to me, and you can see the outlines there of the separation between fundamentalists who focus on salvation (and on condemning those who might lead them farther from it) and those who focus on, say, the Beatitudes (and thus on serving the poorest and welcoming the unwelcome, whether they be sinners or "saved"). This is a formulation that could almost bring the two groups to grounds for discussion, as is apparent in the author's experience of an interview on Christian radio.

I went on to explain that while I appreciated his preoccupation with salvation, my main concern was good works. That the Jesus I met in the Bible would be more concerned about curing AIDs than outlawing homosexual marriage, more troubled by world hunger and violence than an erosion of "family values."

I don't know what to do with this new insight right now, but I think it can be powerful, especially as progressives increasingly try to make themselves understood to groups who don't see what could be the broad common ground...

(furled by Medley)