The Gory Detail

One thing whereby I see that we are not so far removed from the Catholics whom we still affect to despise is our preoccupation with the gory detail of the cross.

Indeed we may even have surpassed the Catholics in this, what with the endless parade of movies about Christ which show, in varying degrees of gruesomeness, the crucifixion.

So we shed a tear, or a million, and wax lyrical about the love which did this for us.

But do we really grasp the significance of the thing?

Let me say that if meditating on that Old Rugged Cross actually achieved anything other than morbid fascination to the carnal minds that attempt it, then Spanish Catholicism of the Late Middle Ages should be the archetype of Christianity as it should be.

But I hear a chorus   of "No" from my readers? Indeed I should hope so.

For all such morbidity produced was religious fanaticism that gave us the Inquisition, and in this day and age such religious fanaticism still makes us barren and unloving and indeed even may lead to the modern fanaticism  of Dominionism. For I ask you - with the world soaked in sermons, videos, religious movies even of relatively sound content, and the like, were the contrary true we should see the visible fruit of it, should we not?.

But still the name of God is blasphemed among the nations because we  are hypocrites. Where are the changed lives? Indeed this  indulgence in what amounts to mere empty religiose emotion produces nothing that lasts and will only encourage hard legalists to reject emotion outright, as I will explore in  my piece "The Hypocrites Charter" in due course

If we are indeed carnal minded, and I submit that our fruit show this, then no amount of spiritual exercises (a term coined by Ignatius Loyola) will be of any value, for I submit that severe treatment of the mind by forced gazing on what we view as traumatic, is  as worthless as severe treatment of the body, which scripture plainly and clearly denounces.

That something is spiritually discerned does not mean it is discerned by the human spirit as opposed to the human mind (an absurd application of that absurd doctrine that Man is made in the image of God by virtue of being a trinity, just as God is). But it does mean such is discerned under the tutelage of the Holy Spirit revealing to us and reasoning with us ("Come Let us reason together," says the Lord)  in the on going personal relationship, One on one, with the Spirit of Christ, who is our Wonderful Counsellor, which is the very core  and essence of discipleship.

But without this partnership with the Holy Spirit under his Lordship and benevolent leading we will get nowhere for we who cannot submit and cannot understand (for so scripture declares) will remain in that state unless the Spirit teach us the significance of the words that we are given to parroting - and indeed, given our carnality, we can do no other with these holy words;

I am not going to go into detail about the hideous cruelty of crucifixion. That is contrary to my point entirely. But suffice to say that after such a study I can  no longer look on the image of the cross at all.  I am not transfixed by a love that did this, I am traumatized by the horror.

The Lord the Spirit tells me that there is no cross in my thinking.

But let me explain this term. By "thinking" I mean emotional thinking. As regards doctrine and intellect I can purvey the Cross with the best of them. But no one, not even intellectuals. live in their heads. Intellectual thought is of no honest conviction if it has not become heart conviction as shown by our way of life, by the Fruit of the Spirit. On this basis it must be said that  I have never grasped the significance of the Cross, and my legalism, which continues over decades of stubborn, fearful and prideful defiance, is the evidence of this as I attempt to save myself,  for to my thinking there is no other way.

And all the effort in the world I have made has not changed this one iota.

I am carnal minded as my fruit is carnal and to me the things of God are still foolishness. I cannot submit.

That some might retort that if I am born again I am in the Spirit (the immediate context of this verse I quote here) I will reply that yes indeed. I am somehow in the Spirit, for all my carnality. I can be brought to submit. But this is quite  a different thing from saying I can simply submit, cold as it were, by simple act of will. Likewise I can be brought to  understand, but not of myself nor of  my attempts at what amount to mere Spiritual Exercises

So I suggest not a forced meditation on visible and external detail, which is valid would have made Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" a spiritual masterpiece as well as a Hollywood blockbuster; and would have made medieval Catholicism the true religion; but  rather a confession of our incomprehension and unbelief as shown by our lives and our efforts to believe

But if we are to become wise we must  first become fools, (I Corinthians  3:18). That is so say we are to admit that we do not understand what we try to understand, so indeed really are fools.

It is more honest and as always it is much, much easier when done under the personal tutelage of the Holy Spirit. And it makes us teachable