Becoming Jewish and staying Catholic
One day, with time to kill, I was browsing in a bookshop and came across Becoming Jewish, a guide for those who want to convert to Judaism, by Steven Carr Reuben and Jennifer S. Hanin. I found it fascinating, partly for the subject matter (how do you become a Jew?) and partly for the open-mindedness on the part of the authors about which strand of Judaism might appeal to the curious reader. Four separate paths or traditions were described with equal clarity and respect. Becoming Jewish is not just a question about what you have to believe but what you have to do – learning Hebrew, undergoing circumcision, or various other lifestyle changes. Obviously the more Orthodox the more there is to do and the harder and longer the process.
Those born Jewish do not really have to do anything to remain Jewish, but those choosing to become Jewish have to embrace the new path completely – at least at first. Similarly with Catholicism. The convert is required to affirm all Church teaching; there can be no pages missing from their Catechism. As Father Richard Rohr said, ‘You have to start conservative.’
Leafing through that book made me realise again that every Christian has to start (and remain) Jewish; Christianity’s foundations are (and remain) the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. While it is perfectly understandable that Jews should consider Christians to be in error it is wholly unacceptable for Christians to see themselves as separate from their Abrahamic roots. This theological truth is something that has begun to be rediscovered only in the past fifty years or so, in the aftermath of the Holocaust and the Second Vatican Council. The role that Christian theology played over the centuries in the creation of anti-Semitism is as indisputable as it is shameful.
A great mistake was made when early followers of Christ saw themselves replacing Judaism with a new chosen people based on ticking the right confessional boxes. The Jewish people’s precious insight, and a much misunderstood one, was that God chose them unreservedly: not, in the final analysis, because by doing so He rejected others (and the Jewish Scriptures are full of reasons why that choice was not made based on good behaviour), but that God’s connection with humanity was a personal embrace, and that the Chosen People, as a beautiful flower, were meant eventually to fill a vast garden – Abraham’s descendants ‘as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore’ (Genesis 22:17). Christ’s development of this idea, as an observant Jew, was that this choice of God was both personal and universal.
The dominance of Roman law and Greek philosophy throughout earlier Christian history now seems a stumbling block not just to interfaith relations but to an understanding of our own faith. Might we find a safer way to preserve the integrity and relevance of Christianity in our present century and beyond at the synagogue as much as at the church?
Is it Christian to single out the Christians?
In the twenty-first century Christians are statistically one of the most persecuted groups in the world. It is often claimed that not enough is said by Western political leaders about the atrocious terrorist killings that take place from time to time, particularly in Pakistan and the Middle East. A gunning down of worshippers during a church service is Terror with a capital T because its aim is intimidation through fear. I’m a weekly churchgoer; it could be me.
Has the response by the West been an example of cowardice as some claim, a politically correct reluctance to support Christians as one of the religious groups most under threat? I am conscious thinking about this that I would be as horrified by an attack on Hindus in their temple, on Tories at their conference, or on students at a rowdy nightclub as I am by violence against Christians – my own group.
If one had to make a list of Christ’s most powerful, revolutionary insights one of the most important would be the undoing of that human reflex to want to be part of a special, privileged group or clique. To see Christianity as a club or a cultural identity is to negate its very soul – not to mention the madness of cliques within the cliques when denominations fight and fume. The God Christ preached and lived was one who is Father to all and who views everyone as beloved because everyone was created and is upheld in love. That inclusive insight is Christianity’s front-page headline.
We might not like it, but Christians are not God’s ‘favourites’. We might like even less the fact that God loves terrorists as much as he loves well-behaved little me. This is not to suggest turning a glib, blind eye to evil or injustice, far from it, but it is to suggest that any Christianity worth preserving, defending or celebrating is (if at times with gritted teeth or a broken heart) to strive to forgive to the last breath.
Christendom had over a thousand years to make its point, its mouth close to the only microphone in town. Any strident demand in our post-Christian age for it to be pushed to the front of the queue might well turn out to be counterproductive. A gentler, kinder voice needs to be used, and thereby we might even find a way of changing Terror itself into hope and reconciliation.
The feelings of solidarity and outrage a Christian feels towards those tragically killed in a terrorist attack should be because human beings have been senselessly murdered. The fact that they were Christians is (strangely, radically, life-givingly) beside the point.
Putting the ‘Mass’ back into Christmas
Slogans about ‘putting Christ back into Christmas’ are commonly heard each year as Christians try to encourage secular society to remember the religious origins of the season, even though those origins and the traditions associated with their celebration are far from purely Christian and reach back into customs of the winter solstice and other ancient rites.
Although we know that Christ was not born on 25 December, most Christians (especially non-Catholics) fail to realise that the word ‘Christmas’ actually refers to the Mass on the feast of Christ’s birth – Christ’s Mass. So even the secular form ‘Xmas’ retains the inner religious meaning more than it might seem, and the common American use of ‘holidays’ (Holy Days) for this season is no escape from religious connotations either.
English is actually full of such linguistic incense. ‘Knock on wood’ in America or ‘touch wood’ in Britain refers to a relic of the Cross; ‘fingers crossed’ is making a small sign of the cross for luck; ‘short shrift’ refers to making a quick confession (to ‘shrive’ is to undergo that sacrament); ‘red-letter days’ refers to the major feast days of saints in the Missal or Breviary which were printed in red; ‘Adam’s apple’ – not so hard to swallow; and even some swear words have Catholic origins – ‘bloody’ is thought by some to be a shortened form of ‘by Our Lady’. Oh, and ‘goodbye’ is an abbreviated version of ‘God be with you’.
To ‘put Christ back into Christmas’ should not mean a return to a religious triumphalism, a reclaiming of a heritage that makes those of different faiths or none feel uncomfortable. Christ in the cave or stable is a challenge to all cosy belief systems, and a poor, unmarried, homeless young woman having her first child in an emergency situation should be a threat to no one. The magic of the Christmas story, whether believed literally, symbolically or seen merely as a fairy story, is its simplicity and its humanity. For many people Christmas has become more a symbol of the way we complicate our lives: the stamps to be stuck, the shopping to be schlepped. An invitation to return to the meaning of Christmas is, perhaps, an invitation to seek afresh our own origins of innocence and simplicity – the real X-factor many of us spend our whole lives longing for.
Christmas carols
Every year, as November draws to a close, those of us who live in cities or towns start to hear Christmas carols. These jingles are usually synthetic – jazzed up, smoothed out, dumbed down – but nevertheless King Wenceslas, the Wise Men and the Christ-child make their appearance annually through the sound systems and speakers of our supermarkets and shopping centres.
Carols are the background noise to the most frantically commercial weeks in the UK’s calendar. They shamelessly cooperate with the most rampantly materialistic impulses we have, and
yet, ironically, their words recall us to an utter simplicity of lifestyle: a poor, homeless family taking shelter in a cave. Carols ‘smell’ of Christmas; they are an irreplaceable part of its atmosphere. I’m aware, of course, that cultural context is part of this. I grew up in a village in Cheshire singing these seasonal hymns at school and church. Frosty air, mince pies, decorating the house, sending and receiving cards, presents piled up around the Christmas tree … all these combined to create a magical spell for a young boy in England in the 1960s. But I’ve met people of all ages from very different backgrounds and faiths who have caught the Christmas bug. ‘Silent Night’ in a dark church lit only by flickering candles can be a moment of repose and wonder for any harassed human being.
Then there’s the act of singing itself. ‘He who sings prays twice’ is attributed to St Augustine. But even without the religious connotations of that saying I still believe that making music is an amplified experience, a poetic response to life, a reaching beyond the everyday: ‘Life and light to all he brings, risen with healing in his wings.’ Charles Wesley’s shining words might originally have been referring to the Son of God but they can also refer to the very tune that gives them voice every season. Music is a bringer of life, of light, of healing. It can seem to give wings to our spirits. And singing carols can be the one time in the year, outside the shower or the football stadium, when people are free to let rip. The uninhibited exercising of vocal cords brings oxygen to more than the lungs.
The theology in many of the Christmas texts we sing can be pretty uncompromising. In that same carol (‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing’), as voices strain on the higher notes of Felix Mendelssohn’s rousing tune, there appears, ‘Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, Hail the incarnate Deity’ – no wiggle room there for the passing doubter or unbeliever. But actually I don’t think that matters. The truly important message of Christmas and what makes it so perennially touching is its celebration of goodness and simplicity. History is full of gods (and kings and emperors … and popes) who display and wield majestic power, benevolently or cruelly. It is less common to observe a ruler who appears to us fresh from the womb, wriggling helplessly in a cave, soiling a makeshift nappy. Purity of dogma seems less pressing when a hungry baby needs feeding.
‘What can I give him, poor as I am? Give my heart,’ suggests Christina Rossetti in her exquisite carol ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’. The idea of giving is central to Christmas, most obviously in the presents we give to others. But, going deeper, we long to give ourselves to those we love. Our only hesitation is our fear that that gift might not be welcome. The message of Christmas suggests that we are loved first and that our meagre gifts are always what is most desired.
Secular Christmas songs can be included in this celebration because they share the same values of benevolence and generosity. Chestnuts roasting on an open fire are a pleasure to be shared. ‘White Christmas’ symbolises cheer and joy for all. ‘Faithful friends who are dear to us, Gather near to us once more’ – sentiments from that most sentimental of seasonal songs made famous by Judy Garland and Frank Sinatra, ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’. Even the most non-religious of the popular Christmas songs, ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’, contains a powerful allegory of the triumph of the underdog. A defect can be the very thing most useful and lovable. Such a reversal of human wisdom is one of the things which makes Christmas so powerful.
Whether you take the Nativity literally or metaphorically, Christmas has a message for everyone. It is a yearly invitation to welcome strangers and outsiders, to care for the weakest among us, to reawaken a spirit of generosity and warmth towards all.
Of course, many people see the whole story as, well, a mere story. But if it is a ‘tall story’ it’s one that reaches up to the heavens. A God whom we cannot see becomes One we can smell – the swaddling cloths were presumably for absorption as well as protection. Into a first-century world of swashbuckling myths, of gods towering over humanity with ideals of riches, beauty, heroic strength and will, squishes a slippery baby born to an unmarried mother in an occupied country. Yes, it beggars belief – and not just in its supernatural elements. No king or ruler, claiming to follow this Child, can strut into the stable at Bethlehem with quite the same self-importance as before. The pompous preaching of history’s religious leaders – their moral judgements, their confident bluster, their smug ‘expertise’ – is a mere footprint in the cowpat they narrowly avoid as they approach the manger.
We all begin our lives helpless in a crib. Each year Christmas can enable us to press a reset button of innocence in the midst of our complex, adult experiences. As the branches of the trees are laid bare, so our own rather ludicrous ambitions can be seen more clearly for what they are. Our crowns turn out to be made of tinsel … but no matter. We can smile at our little games of power and their ultimate irrelevance. Each year … until our last Christmas, when we ourselves return to a manger in our own swaddling clothes, helpless, soiled and emptied out.
‘The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.’ At the end of December every city, every village, every home can become a ‘little town of Bethlehem’.
Sacraments and the sugar-plum fairy
‘I saw both the Nutcracker ballet and Midsummer Night’s Dream over the weekend. I was completely overwhelmed. We must cling to these artistic experiences and treasure them because they truly replace religion in so many of our lives.’ Thus spoke a dear friend of mine during a phone call. It wasn’t the moment to suggest the inadequacy of art alone as a moral compass for life (remember the fervent Schubertiades in the log-fire twilights of Auschwitz), but I did comment that both of those masterpieces involve the thrill of magic, the contrast between innocence and experience, the enchantment yet pain of lost childhood and its memories.
After the conversation I started to think of enchantment in a different sense, in a religious sense, in a sacramental sense. That deeply touching experience my friend had had in the theatre was perhaps closer to a religious experience than he thought. Christ was a storyteller and a miracle-worker (let’s leave aside for now whether the miracles actually took place), but he was not a theologian. His appeal was magical. He enchanted people and drew them after him like some irresistible Pied Piper. The sacraments (external signs of internal grace) are some spells he left behind to remind us of him.
The Reformers said that there are only two sacraments mentioned in the Bible, Baptism and Eucharist (although Luther himself included a third with Penance) and they were right; but they went on to purge them of poetry, chaining them to the written word alone, devoid of mystery. The Catholics claimed that there are seven sacraments, but theologians over the centuries so entangled them with fine points of dogma and tradition that to omit intentionally one gesture of thumb and forefinger in the intricate rubrics of the Mass was enough to send one to hell. The magic circle had become a noose around the neck.
Magic can be threatening because it is uncontrollable. ‘How often should I forgive my brother? Seven times?’ asked one of Christ’s disciples. ‘No. Seventy times seven times,’ he replied. The spell is cast; the forgiveness is infinite, illogical, dangerous. ‘If someone demands your jacket give him your coat too.’ The spell is cast; the generosity is infinite, illogical, dangerous. I agree with my friend that the imagination of art gives birth to magic, whether it’s Tchaikovsky, Balanchine or Shakespeare waving the wand. But to forgive even once, to offer even a jacket … there is the miracle; and there perhaps religion waits in the wings, prompting, encouraging, empowering.
Reformation: the individual or the community?
People argued about religion a lot in the sixteenth century. A disagreement about the smallest details of a doctrine, shared at the wrong time or in the wrong place, could lead to torture and a gruesome death. One subtle and hard-to-pin-down distinction between Catholics and Reformers intrigues me, as I think it can apply to the world of music and concert performance: does the human being relate to God primarily as
an individual or through the community known as the Church, and formerly known as the people of Israel?
The individual or the community? Well, it’s both of course, but Martin Luther’s focus on the individual, which we see reflected in his attributed statement, ‘Here I stand, I can do no other’, was one of the most important influences in human thought and led eventually to the full flowering of the Enlightenment. Without this idea of the primacy of self-expression or conscience (with its allowance and celebration of the idiosyncratic, the offbeat, the heretical even), my musical world would not exist. Developing a personal voice is essential for a soloist or composer. Take Beethoven. Despite being attached to the rigour of Classical forms, he took delight in bending and breaking them. He was a lapsed Catholic who combined the genius and confidence of individualism with a vision of the universal. He hadn’t the slightest fear of questioning authority, however venerable it might be.
With the Abbé Liszt, his Catholicism worn as a cloak around him, the plot thickens. No one developed the idea of artist as individual, as star, more than him. Sitting in profile to the audience, playing from memory, alone on stage, adored by his (mostly female) fans, he was the antithesis of the medieval artist as an invisible servant – of God, of the Church, of society. Indeed Liszt spent the latter half of his life living out the spiritual contradictions of this as he went in and out of retreat, in and out of the limelight. Was his cassock a sign of submission to the Church or a theatrical costume? Probably both.
Is an orchestra an example of Catholic community and a soloist of a Protestant individualism? Is a conductor a kind of authoritarian papal figure or a radical, prophetic voice? Does Bruckner’s fervent Catholicism reveal itself in his music? Although it is possible to hear in his vast symphonies a kind of monumental, cathedral-like utterance, we hear too the Austrian composer’s reverence for Richard Wagner, a lapsed Lutheran and a textbook example of larger-than-life individualism.
Rough Ideas Page 35
