Consider the collect from the Book of Common Prayer for the Second Sunday after the Epiphany.
Almighty God, whose Son our Savior Jesus Christ is the light of the world: Grant that your people, illumined by your Word and Sacraments, may shine with the radiance of Christ's glory, that he may be known, worshiped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Let me propose a thought experiment, based on this collect, to explore certain ideas concerning culture, history, and the lordship of Christ.[1] The impetus for this exploration, besides the explicit value of better understanding the meaning of the collect, is to correlate what we pray and what we believe (lex orandi, lex credendi—the law of praying, and the law of believing). While there are many reasons to examine and employ the principle of lex orandi, lex credendi, surely one is to enlighten our prayer and our belief, so that we more nearly pray what we believe and believe what we pray.
The thought experiment is this. Imagine that the anticipated state in this collect comes true some day—that Jesus is actually known, worshiped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth. For the purposes of the thought experiment, it does not matter when. It only matters that it comes true at a point within history. In other words, for the sake of the experiment, it only matters that we imaginatively posit a future point when it is true, and that such a reality does not require us to postulate the ushering in of the end of history and the start of the age to come. As we play out the thought experiment, certain implications of the collect’s meaning become clear.
The encompassing reign of Jesus Christ
The collect presents a big agenda. Succinctly, unambiguously, it calls for no less than the world-wide, encompassing reign of Jesus Christ. This collect, then, stands upon and neatly captures the long-standing Christian claim (from Jesus himself) that Jesus is the way, truth, and life, and that he alone is the savior and hope of creation in general and of human existence in particular. Only if we believe this about Jesus, would we earnestly desire and pray that Jesus be known, worshiped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth. Thus, if we believe the collect, if we believe Jesus is savior and light, it would seem an essential part of the Christian faith, that we Christians genuinely do intend the truth of this collect and desire that it come true.
As we pray the collect then, with its bold and bald agenda, and we imaginatively behold the reality anticipated in the collect, we really are confronted with the question of what we believe. Do we pray and truly mean what the collect says, that Jesus ought to be known, worshiped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth? The encompassing reign of Jesus Christ—this is a big intention, based on a big claim. Not a few within the Church, much less outside the Church, would take exception to the collect as, at a minimum, anachronistically naive about the pluralism of beliefs, and likely even insufferably triumphalistic.
Yet we make a great mistake if we assume that the claim underlying the collect is uniquely bold and dubious in our modern era, as many would have us think. Since the inception of the Christian Way, the claim of Jesus’ unique and necessary cosmic significance has been central to the character and dynamism of that Way. Further, since the inception of the Christian Way, the claim has always knowingly been made in the context of religious and cultural pluralism, with numerous and varied counter claimants to the status of the Way, or to the necessity and virtue of syncretism and religious laissez-faire. Hence, we cannot dismiss this collect as merely an anachronism, no longer relevant or credible to a different world or a different Christian consciousness of the world.
Rather, if we are awake when we pray it, the collect must startle and challenge us. Because of the widespread qualification and even rejection within Church structures of the uniqueness and cosmic necessity of Jesus—which qualification and rejection would make the collect tendentious at best—the collect may in our current situation uniquely highlight, on the Second Sunday after the Epiphany, the divide between those who pray the collect with integrity of intention and desire, and those who pray it but cannot genuinely mean and desire it, however nice it sounds. And, lest we succumb to the temptation to think ourselves spiritually superior to others, which in fact seems utterly contradictory to superior spirituality, the collect may also throw into sharp relief our own belief commitments, forcing us to examine and answer what we truly believe, so that we can pray truly. For words have meaning. Or, perhaps more accurately, the utterance of words has meaning. Thus the collect cannot be prayed glibly and sentimentally. Imagine, really, the reality anticipated by the collect! Do we actually understand and desire, in God’s good time, the encompassing reign of Jesus Christ? What would it mean for human existence?
History, culture, and the encompassing
These questions move me deeply. Surely, even in the poverty of my imagining, the fruition of the encompassing reign of Christ would yield realities so splendorous and sublime for creation and human existence that I can scarcely begin to enumerate or even articulate them. Yet in this thought experiment, imagining the encompassing reign of Christ in some future, the questions also push me to deep wrestling with prayer and belief with respect to history and culture.[2] This is because it seems indisputable that, in the reality of Jesus being known, worshiped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth, many cultures as we now know them would cease to exist. Certainly, cultural monism would not result. Yet much of all cultures would change and even disappear, and perhaps especially would this be the case for cultures that have less rather than more rootedness in Christian history and thought.
Let me make clear at this point that I am thinking from within an Anglo-American cultural perspective (clearly possessing commonalities with and antecedents in European cultural history and elements), a perspective that has as much basis as any culture to claim rootedness in Christian history and thought. Moreover, I am writing principally to people within this cultural perspective, and more particularly to people who adhere enough to the Christian Church to pray this collect on the Second Sunday after the Epiphany, or to share its theological perspective, at least historically. While there are many diversities, tensions, and disagreements within it, this cultural perspective is cohesive and patterned enough to be distinct in significant ways from certain other cultures, such as Chinese culture, which has comparatively little rootedness in Christian history and thought.
Yet it seems reasonable to posit that Anglo-American culture would undoubtedly change in the reality of Jesus being known, worshiped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth, for that would include Anglo-American culture, and Anglo-American culture surely has elements that are at odds with this comprehensive lordship of Jesus (even if we do not all agree what elements are at odds with the lordship of Jesus). At the same time, it seems just as reasonable to posit that Chinese culture, being little or not at all rooted in Christian history and thought, would change far more. In fact, it is possible that Chinese culture would change so much in the reality of Jesus being known, worshiped, and obeyed that it would largely or fundamentally no longer be Chinese culture as we now know it.
For the sake of the high ground in following this implication of the thought experiment, let us have in mind only those elements of various cultures that we take to be accomplishments or achievements of culture, as against those elements that we might argue are failures or monstrosities of culture. And more, let us acknowledge that human existence has been and is enriched by those cultural accomplishments, at least to some degree, even where religious perspectives and commitments divide and differ. Take, for example, works of art in China, deeply influenced, say, by Buddhism or Confucianism, which can be viewed as achievements of culture, in contrast to Nazi social and political philosophy and practices, which can be viewed as failures or monstrosities of culture. It is my supposition that one can experience and argue, as an example, the achievements of Chinese art and culture, with their enrichment of human existence, even while one disputes and counters certain religious and philosophical claims in the same art and culture.
What then will the encompassing reign of Christ mean for the many, various cultural achievements that enrich human existence, when clearly some of those achievements are not rooted in the reign of Jesus, at least not in any clear or direct sense? When Jesus is known, worshiped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth, we will certainly enter new and sublime riches of existence. Yet, what losses will we also experience in the establishment of that world-wide, transforming reign?
Perhaps these questions of that imagined future can be understood and felt better by also extending our thought experiment momentarily to the past. Imagine that Jesus had been known, worshiped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth from the beginning of human existence and the rise of human cultures (remember, this is a thought experiment), it follows that non-Christian cultural accomplishments would not have come about. Various cultures would certainly have developed, but across them cultural accomplishments would be Christian, directly or indirectly, in form and substance. Many things that have been accomplished in and through diverse cultures would never have come into being. However, we would not “miss” those cultural accomplishments outside of Christ because they would never have happened. We cannot miss what we have not known. Hence, the questions raised above would themselves not be known.
Yet in reality Jesus has not been known, worshiped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth. Human history is in fact replete with the rise and variation of cultures and—notwithstanding their failures and even their false religious and philosophical commitments and influences—with the achievements of those diverse cultures, achievements that have enriched and continue to enrich the people of each culture and even people of other cultures. In this sense, keeping with the original direction of our thought experiment, the future reality of Jesus being known, worshiped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth holds the prospect of those cultural achievements being dismissed, lost, and destroyed, and never being produced again. Then, I submit, it seems inescapable that we would truly miss those achievements, or some of those achievements, or at least some aspects of those achievements. That which has enriched would no longer enrich, and we would experience true loss in those transformations.
It may be objected that the loss in those transformations (of which I wrote in the first notes on the collect) would be offset by the heightened diversity and truthfulness of cultures more closely aligned with the Creator’s full intent.
The essence of this objection has much value. There would be immeasurable gain in the rise, development, and achievement of such cultures. Nevertheless, certain points must be noted to understand the full import of what is meant by loss.
First, it is misleading to think in terms of offsetting the loss. It is one of the great temptations of theology, perhaps especially of Latin and later Western theology, when speaking of the significance of Jesus in terms of canceling or satisfying a debt. The depth of the problem (the “debt”) and hence the meaning of the divine response are not finally captured by an accounting ledger. In accounting, a debit, for example, can be precisely offset by a corresponding credit. No residue remains. They exactly balance or “cancel” each other. The “debt” of sin and the satisfaction of Christ are somewhat otherwise. Jesus does not cancel in the sense of leaving no “residue.” I do not mean that Jesus is less than the “full, perfect, and complete oblation and satisfaction.” There is no other needed. There is no more to be done. Yet somehow sin has changed matters once and for all. In Jesus, God forges a new humanity which is not a mere offset to sinful humanity, nor a mere restoration to pre-sinful humanity. Forgiveness does not equal amnesia. Nor does it return us to Eden. In Jesus, God takes sinful then redeemed humanity into the divine life in a new way, a new way at least in part precisely because it incorporates the reality that humanity was sinful, that God’s love for humanity “now” has a cross at its heart. Indeed, that is why a cross is and must be at the heart of the good news.
Hence, gain does not obviate loss or the genuine experience of loss. The way many Christians glibly and simplistically proclaim the gain and joy engendered by Jesus renders meaningless the cross (the suffering, loss, and sorrow) that Jesus bore and the cross that we must bear in Jesus. Otherwise, we underestimate the depth of the problem, the depth of God’s response, and the depth of our participation in God’s response.
All of this then begs the meaning of history and of the rise of cultures from a Christian perspective, and, in a humble sense, from the divine perspective (assuming for the sake of argument that, while not identical with the divine perspective, a true Christian perspective roots in and stems from the divine perspective). Several questions arise with respect to this.
Are history and culture outside of Christian history and culture meaningless or irrelevant? Or more, are history and culture outside of Christian history and culture inimical to “right, good, and joyful” human existence? Or, are history and culture outside of Christian history and culture distorted —“seeing through a glass, darkly”—but neither purely meaningless nor purely inimical? Indeed, a question prior to these questions is the following. What do we mean when we speak of Christian history and culture? (With respect to this last question, is it not theologically and empirically true, in the world as we know it, that all history and culture, even assuming the most Christian of cultures, is at best an admixture of Jesus being known, worshiped, and obeyed, and Jesus not being known, worshiped, and obeyed? Nevertheless, the fact of Jesus being known, worshiped, and obeyed— if widespread throughout a people, even imperfectly—would profoundly shape and inform their history and culture.)
Or, do all history and culture have meaning and relevance? And if so, what kind of meaning and relevance? Do history and culture outside of Christian history and culture have only corrective meaning and relevance? In other words, do history and culture outside of Christ have meaning and relevance only insofar as they show Christians and other humans what went wrong and what should be corrected for “right, good, and joyful” human history and culture? Or do they have meaning and relevance in true and laudable ways, albeit admixed with miscues, irrelevancies, dangers, and perversions?
In short, can we discern in all history—in true and laudable ways—true divinity and true humanity, so that all history and culture enriches, at least in some ways and to some extent?
If so, we can say that, when Jesus is known, worshiped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth, culture will rise even richer than before, all the while retaining, catching up, and perfecting all that was achieved before? Or, does that future prospect mean not merely the death of history and culture as we have known them, but the utter obliteration and annihilation of all prior history and culture? What amalgamation of gain and loss will that dearly anticipated state involve? What does all of this mean for us, embedded in this here and now of history and cultures, prior to the encompassing reign of Jesus Christ, at least as the collect envisions it?
These are deep and complex issues. We cannot answer them comprehensively and definitively here, if at all. Yet from our consideration of this thought experiment we can derive certain significant principles with respect to history and culture.
In general, varieties of cultures are inevitable and good in the course of human history. The only alternatives are (1) to deny the value and significance of history or (2) to desire worldwide monoculturalism throughout history. Either alternative suggests that in creation God intended an essentially static and thoroughly uniform existence. Dynamism, process, and fecundity are denied. Yet this is unbiblical, and hence it seems unnatural. The account of creation clearly depicts process and fecundity in creation as part of its very God-given essence, prior to and persisting through the Fall. In other words, history is ineluctably essential to what creation is and what creation means. Therefore, even had Jesus been known, worshiped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth from the beginning and for all time without interruption, varieties of cultures would have arisen in history. Cultures express that dynamic fecundity which is the very stuff of God’s good creation.
The particular varieties of cultures and their achievements, while in a sense resulting from the reality of Jesus not being known, worshiped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth, possess a complex but true goodness in the wake of the Fall. It is not general variety in culture that we know, but this particular variety of culture. And without having to affirm every and all cultures and cultural elements, we Christians acknowledge and affirm this particular variety of cultures as the only ones we know and hence as the ones we must acknowledge and affirm in light of God’s sovereignty. Therefore, “blessed fault.” Only because of that first sin do we have the cultures we know.
History and culture then possess a double goodness, so to speak. The first is that goodness endowed by God in creation. This is a pure, unalloyed goodness, though, as we have noted, not a simplistic, unvariegated, and static goodness. The second is that goodness derived from God as the medium and the means whereby God acts in and for creation to effect new creation. This most certainly involves variegation and dynamism, both in this existence and in the existence to come.
The test of what is good in culture is not solely (or even primarily) the degree of overt exaltation or acknowledgment or manifestation of Jesus. Because of the hiddenness of Jesus in creation—that is, in history and culture—the “at-one-remove” standard of truth, beauty, and goodness serves as a better test of cultural elements. We ought not expect—as necessary to genuine truth, beauty, and goodness—more of the hiddenness of Jesus to be removed than God has apparently deemed to remove through history.
Because of sin and the suffering of Jesus, the standard of what is good in culture will and must acknowledge and incorporate the realities and effects of sin, of alienation from and even enmity with God. Cultural elements representing, for example, resignation in the face of suffering, the transitoriness of beauty and of existence, sorrow and despair about existence, may well reveal, albeit in a hidden and incomplete fashion, genuine truth, beauty, and goodness, genuine depth in understanding and experiencing human existence, clear realism about human existence and creation (that is, both the heights and the depths, the joys and sorrows, expressible and inexpressible, mundane and transcendent), genuine passion for human existence and creation, and genuine yearning for truth, beauty, goodness, joy, and even the sublime. There is more Christ-like truth, beauty, and goodness in certain Chinese scrolls than in many “praise” songs.
Perhaps, in a particular sense, culture “outside” of Jesus being known, worshiped, and obeyed represents and provides a form of the via negativa by which we “know” divine and thus human reality.
Clearly, in the long tradition of Christian thought many great minds and hearts have wrestled with these and similar questions. Yet the collect for the Second Sunday after the Epiphany brings them sharply to mind for me and, I submit, for anyone who prays the collect with mind and heart truly awake. Acutely, this collect heightens the question of the relationship between prayer and belief—lex orandi, lex credendi (the law of praying and the law of believing). It points to the complex interplay between prayer and belief, with each having formative influence on the other. That relationship in turn heightens issues of integrity and intention in what we say and what we believe. Prayer, intercourse with the divine, even in the Sunday collect, demands no less than all the heights and depths of our minds and hearts—no less than our whole being.
[1] I propose a thought experiment because of the potential value in such an exercise for extra-ordinary insight and understanding. A thought experiment involves an imaginative construction of a situation or action not practically possible in the realm of the here and now. A thought experiment can allow us to think beyond the possibilities of the purely practical. It can help us move beyond the blinders of pre-determined views and expected data. From the extra-ordinary vantage point of a thought experiment, we may be able to see matters in an entirely new way, yielding fresh and deep insights.
With these cautions duly in mind, I will proceed in the hope that this thought experiment is indeed truly fruitful.
[2] For the sake of simplicity, I am not making a sharp distinction between history and culture, but viewing them as intimately interwoven processes and patterns.
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