The vast majority of people today live in
situations of hunger and misery, which are manifested in very high infant
mortality, lack of decent housing, health problems, extremely low wages,
unemployment and underemployment, job instability, mass migration, illiteracy,
marginalization and enslavement of women and children, etc. To these economic
problems are added those that arise from the abuses of power, typical of the
governments of force.
However, these people are Christian, and
mostly Catholic. This implies not only having been baptized, but also having
assimilated the deep values of the Gospel, which have been inserted
into its ancestral human, cultural and religious riches.
Now, it is contradictory to being a
Christian, the way many Christians live their faith. On the one hand, a rich
and powerful minority calls themselves Christian and defender of the Western
tradition and uses faith as an instrument to maintain their privileges as a
social group, subjecting the majority to an inhuman situation. On the other
hand, large popular masses live their Christian faith in an alienating way. For
many, faith is only a help to resign more easily and wait for the reward of the
prize in the afterlife. Christianity becomes in fact a drug, a numbing
anesthetic.
Puebla reacts to this situation:
"We see in the light of faith, as a
scandal and a contradiction with being Christian, the growing gap between rich and
poor. The luxury of a few becomes an insult against the misery of the great
masses. This is contrary to the plan. of the creator and the honor that he owes.
In this anguish and pain the Church discerns a situation of social sin, all the
more serious because it occurs in countries that call themselves Catholic and
have the capacity to change (DP 28).
Faced with this situation of poverty and
alienating and alienated Christianity, a double awareness arises today
throughout Latin America. On the one hand, this situation of poverty is
beginning to be seen as not accidental or natural, but the result of unjust
economic, social and political structures (DP 30)”.
It is in this relatively new context that
the question arises, what is it to be a Christian today? The question about the
meaning of Christianity is never abstract, but always refers to a specific
place and time. Therefore, before trying to answer this question, it is
necessary to reflect from where the question is asked. From poor and Christian
people, who begin to become aware of their dual condition of poor and believer,
the question arises about the meaning of the Christian life. Surely being a
Christian is different from what many have believed so far.
Being
A Christian Is Not Simply. . .
Before answering the question about being a
Christian in a positive way, it is necessary to undo the misunderstandings of
false or insufficient definitions of Christianity.
Being a Christian is not simply doing good
and avoiding evil.
There are many honest people, who work to
build a better world and try to fight against corruption and injustice. They
are moved by noble motives and a humanistic ethic. However, despite their
positive contributions and human values, they cannot be called properly
Christian for this reason.
Being a Christian is not simply believing
in God. Jews and Mohammedans, Buddhists and Hindus, and members of other great
religions of humanity, believe in God, the origin and ultimate end of
everything, but they do not believe in Jesus Christ. As much as their lives and
efforts are under the provident love of God and the power of his Spirit, they
cannot be called Christians.
Being a Christian is not simply about
performing certain rituals. Every religion has symbolic ceremonies and rites,
otherwise it would become a mere ethical intellectualism for minorities. But it
is not enough to have been baptized, to have made the first communion, to
attend processions, to make pilgrimage to Marian shrines, to celebrate
festivities to be able to be identified as Christian. The Pharisees of Jesus'
time were very faithful in their rites and yet Jesus denounced them as
hypocrites (Mt 23). The rite is necessary, but not sufficient to be a
Christian.
Being a Christian is not limited to accepting some truths of faith, in some dogmas, reciting the Creed or knowing the catechism by heart. Many who profess upright Christian doctrine are in practice very far from the Gospel. It is necessary to accept the faith of the Church, to know her laws and precepts, but this is not enough to be a Christian. Christianity is not just a doctrine.
Being a Christian is not identified with
following a tradition, which is maintained for centuries through an
environment. Every religion recognizes the importance of the weight of history,
but Christianity is not simply a culture, a folklore, an art, an immemorial
custom that is transmitted through the ages.
Being a Christian cannot consist only of
preparing for the next life, waiting in the hereafter, while one is
disinterested in the things of the present or is limited to suffering with
resignation. The Christian faith affirms the existence of an eternal life and
the consummation of the earth, but the hope of a new earth should not dampen
the concern to transform and change this history (GS 39). For this reason, one
cannot call a Christian who is inhibited from historical concerns, with the
excuse of future heaven.
Being a Christian does not identify with
any of these positions or others like them. Some are prior to Christianity
(doing good, believing in God), others admit necessary elements, but not enough
(practicing rites, accepting truths), others are mutilations of Christianity
(reducing it to a tradition or waiting for eternal goods). Surely the contradiction
of Christianity today stems from the fact that many Christians identify with
some of these inappropriate forms of Christianity.
To
Be a Christian Is to Follow Jesus
One cannot be a Christian apart from the
historical figure of Jesus of Nazareth, who died and rose for us and God the
Father made him Lord and Christ (Acts 2,36). The Christian is not simply a
doctrine, an ethic, a rite or a religious tradition, but Christian is
everything that says relationship with the person of Jesus Christ. Without him
there is no Christianity. The Christian is the same. Christians are followers
of Jesus, his disciples. In Antioch, for the first time the disciples of Jesus
were called Christians (Acts 11:26). The Christian life is a way (Acts 9,2),
the way of following Jesus
Following Jesus means recognizing him as
Lord.
Nobody follows someone for no reason. The
Apostles followed Jesus because they recognized that He was the Lamb of God who
takes away the sin of the world (Jn 1,29-37), the Messiah, the Christ (Jn
1:41), the One of whom Moses wrote in the law and the prophets (Jn 1,45), the
Son of God, the King of Israel (Jn 1,49). Before Jesus, Peter exclaims before
following him: "Lord, depart from me, for I am a sinner" (Lk 5,8). The
Apostles recognize that Jesus is the One whom the prophets had announced as the
future Messiah and that John the Baptist had proclaimed as already near (Jn
1,26; Lk 3,16).
Today the Christian recognizes Jesus as the
Way, the Truth and the Life (Jn 14,6), the Door (Jn 10,7), the Light (Jn 8,12),
the Good Shepherd (Jn 10,11, 14 ), the Bread of Life (Jn 6), the Resurrection
and Life (Jn 11,25), the Incarnate Word (Jn 1, 14), the Christ, the Son of the
Living God, (Mt 16,16), the Son of the Father (Jn 5,19-23; 26-27; 36-37; 43
ff), the one who exists before Abraham (Jn 9,58), the Risen Lord (Jn 20-21),
the Judge of the Living and Dead (Mt 35,31-45), the Beginning and the End, the
one who is, was and is to come, the Lord of the Universe (Ap 1,8).
The Christian does not follow, then,
anyone, but the Lord from whom the initiative starts for us to follow him. He
is the one who always calls and says to each of us "Follow me." The
call comes from Him, through Scripture, the Church or the events of history.
Faced with this vocation, the Christian exclaims like Peter: "Lord, to
whom would we go?" You have words of eternal life. We believe and know
that you are the Holy God "(Jn 6,68).
Following
Jesus means accepting his project
Jesus has a project, a mission: to announce
and carry out the Kingdom of God (Mk 1,15). This is the plan that the Father
has entrusted to him, to form a great family of children and brothers, a home,
a new humanity, the new heavens and the new earth that the prophets had
predicted (Is 65, 17-25).
Following
Jesus means continuing his evangelical style
The program of Jesus, the Kingdom of God,
is inseparable from his person, in the Kingdom of God it is incarnated and
personified, with Him the Kingdom draws closer to humanity (Lk 11:20). Jesus
has a peculiar style of announcing and carrying out the Kingdom.
Following
Jesus is being part of his community
Although Jesus called the disciples
personally, one by one, to follow him, he formed a group with them, the twelve,
to which later men and women were added to form a community: the community of
Jesus (Lk 8,1-3). This way of acting of the Lord is not accidental, but
corresponds to God's plan to form a people, throughout history, to be the seed
and ferment of the Kingdom of God (LG 9).
Following
Jesus is living under the power of the Spirit
Following Jesus, being part of his
community, continuing his project in today's history, are realities that
surpass us. This is why Jesus promised the Spirit to his disciples (Jn 14, 17)
and this Spirit is the force and vital breath that animates, vivifies, guides,
sanctifies, enriches and brings to its fullness the community of Jesus'
followers (LG 4). The Spirit converts the following into a new life in Christ,
into a vital communion with the Risen One in his Church, it makes us go from
the voluntarist ethic to the mystique of remaining in Him and living on his
vital sap, like the branch in the vine. (Jn 15).
Finally, we could affirm that the following of Jesus today means fighting for the God of life. The Christian position cannot be merely negative, the fight against the gods of death is oriented to fight in favor of the God of Life, of the God who is the creator of life, of Jesus who has come so that we may have abundant life (Jn 10, 10), of the Spirit of Life.
